


one hundred ways to say "I love you"

by gracecastellan



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Sharing a Bed, prompt collection, so much bed sharing it is ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 27,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8652673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracecastellan/pseuds/gracecastellan
Summary: "People say I love you all the time- when they say, 'take an umbrella, it's raining,' or 'hurry back,' or even 'watch out, you'll break your neck.' There are hundreds of ways of wording it- you just have to listen for it, my dear." -John Patrick, The Curious Savage. Inspired by a list of one hundred ways to say "I love you," one hundred one-shots of Kara Danvers and Mon-El, from friendship to lovers and everything in between.





	1. pull over, let me drive for awhile

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a list of one hundred ways to say "I love you" on Tumblr. Not all in chronological order, some will become AU as new episodes air. All chapters can stand on their own. Enjoy!

> #  _“People say I love you all the time - when they say, ‘take an umbrella, it’s raining,’ or ‘hurry back,’ or even ‘watch out, you’ll break your neck.’ There are hundreds of ways of wording it - you just have to listen for it, my dear.” -John Patrick, The Curious Savage_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

100) _“Pull over. Let me drive for awhile.”_

 

He didn’t really understand why they had to drive in the first place--Kara could fly, for Pete’s sake. 

(Also, who was this Pete everyone was always talking about?)

Kara kept going on about “You should be grateful, Mon-El, this is a very nice car,” and “Really, compared to how long we spent traveling to Earth from our planets, a five hour drive really isn't that bad,” but still, this part of Earth was mostly farmland and Kara didn’t have any music on and Mon-El was overwhelmingly bored.

“So where are we going, exactly?” he asked, even though she’d already told him twice. She sighed, and Mon-El could tell she was trying (and failing) not to appear exasperated.

“It’s a cabin in the woods. It’s away from everything--it’ll give us time to think and train and rest.”

“I find it difficult to believe that your hard-ass boss is sending us away on a little alien retreat. We’re on a DEO mission, aren’t we?”

She sighed again. “I can’t talk about it now, but I’ll explain when we get there.”

She settled in, evidently expecting the silence to return before he spoke again: “What can you talk about now?”

Kara rolled her eyes at him. “Does that line usually work for you?”

“Does deflection and sarcasm usually work for you?” he countered. “How is your love life, by the way?”

“We are not having this conversation.”

“Why not? C’mon, if you really want me to fit in on Earth you have to teach me how to be human. And according to that doctor show, gossip is one of humanity’s favorite pastimes.”

She laughed, and not for the first time, he noticed how nice her smile was.

“Since becoming Supergirl, I haven’t had time to date much. But there have been a couple of guys recently.”

“Do tell, “ he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Stop making that face,” she said, not even looking at him. “Well, there was Ms. Grant’s son, Adam.”

“Ms. Grant your old boss? You dated your boss’ kid? Wow. You go, girl!”

“I take it Winn has been teaching you some new Earth phrases. Wonderful. You know, Winn liked me for a long time. He even kissed me once and it almost ruined our friendship.”

“One kiss almost ruined your friendship? Is that common here?” he asked.

“It made things complicated,” she explained.

“So if I kissed you, it could affect our friendship?”

Kara turned red, and Mon-El noticed her knuckles turning white as her fingers wrapped more tightly around the steering wheel.

“Well I mean, it depends!” Her voice rose an octave and her face turned a shade darker. “James and I kissed too and even tried dating and we’re still close. I guess we didn’t feel for each other like we thought we did. But it took awhile with Winn, probably because he’d had feelings for me for a long time and I didn’t reciprocate. I don’t know Mon-El, Earth dating is complicated.”

He was aware that she hadn’t answered his question, but let it go for the moment.

“What do people do on dates here?” he asked.

“Lots of different things. I guess it depends on how serious you want it to be. You can do dinner, coffee, drinks, go to sports games, or have a movie night in, that kind of thing.”

“On the doctor show they seem to skip that part and go right to sex.”

“That happens too. But a lot of times people hang out and spend time together first. Going out for drinks is a really common one.”

“Like when you and I went to happy hour.”

Kara’s face turned red again. “That wasn’t a date. That was just us hanging out as friends. Why the sudden interest in Earth dating? Did you meet someone?”

“No,” he responded quickly (too quickly). “I’m just trying to learn. So what is the difference between hanging out as friends and a date?”

“You usually know when you’re on a date. It’s getting to know someone that you’re interested in pursuing a relationship with. Someone that you like and are attracted too. And typically you don't go to the same dive bar you always go to and you don't get super drunk and your sister and boss usually aren't there.”

“It sounds nice,” he said. 

She smiled, this time it was softer, as if she were remembering something particularly nice.

“All of the dates I've been on since becoming Supergirl have been interrupted. So it is nice, but it's definitely not easy. Even without the superhero stuff. You have to be on the same page, want the same stuff out of life.”

“Can’t it just be about two people who want to have fun and get to know each other and then the rest of it all comes later?” he asked.

“I guess you could see it that way.”

“I think you should see it that way.”

“Me? No, I don’t have time to worry about dating right now.”

It was his turn to sigh.

 “Kara, you have to have fun once in awhile.”

There was silence for a moment, and then she said, “I had fun at Lena’s party when we danced.”

“I had fun, too,” he said, smiling.

“We used to do more things together-James, Winn, and I. We’d have game nights and hang out in this empty office at Catco while they helped with with Supergirl stuff. We don’t really do as much anymore. Winn is busy with his new job at the DEO, and James has been really preoccupied lately. But I do have fun sometimes. Alex and I have movie nights.” 

“You know, no one has ever explained to me what a movie night is,” he said.

“We’ll have one sometime. Having fun doesn’t always have to be going out and drinking and partying. Staying in is fun too.”

“Does this cabin in the woods have movies?”

“I’m not sure, I guess we’ll see when we get there. If it does and we have some downtime, I’ll show you some classics.”

“How much longer until we arrive?”

“About an hour and a half,” she said. 

He was surprised at how quickly the time had passed while talking to her. They’d been in this so-called Escalade for three and half hours already-she must be tired. Before he could even think about it, he offered, “Pull over. Let me drive for a little bit.”

Kara smiled again. “Maybe I’ll stop at the next rest stop.”

He decided not to inquire about what a rest stop was, instead enjoying the comfortable silence that had settled. This continued for a few moments before she said, “Mon-El?”

“Yes, Kara?”

“Do you even know how to drive?”


	2. it reminded me of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will usually not update this quickly, but I wanted to get this one out before the new episode tomorrow makes this super AU. The goal is one new chapter a week. Thank you all so much for your support on the first one, and enjoy this super long, super fluffy piece.

_99) “It reminded me of you.”_

_OR: Mon-El and Kara visit the Disney store._

 

The holiday season had proven quite overwhelming for Mon-El. All of the music had changed, there were lights literally everywhere, children seemed more rambunctious than usual, and advertisements for gifts were plastered all over the city.

It wasn’t that Mon-El didn’t enjoy Earth holidays. Thanksgiving, in particular, had proven quite wonderful. Kara had invited everyone to her apartment--him, her mom, J’onn, Winn, James, Alex--even the cop lady (Maggie?) and Lena Luthor made an appearance for pie. Pie, by the way, was definitely ranked high on his list of earth’s inventions.  
Winn had helped him pick out a tie, and Mon-El wore it, despite the fact that most of these people he saw every day in his standard jeans and tee shirt, so he saw no reason to dress up. Although, he supposed it was worth it when Kara gave him a hug and told him he looked nice. 

The meal Mrs. Danvers and her daughters cooked was amazing--the best food he’d had since departing Daxam. They’d all gone around the table and shared what they were grateful for. Mon-El thought it was a nice tradition--family, friends, and food. 

Christmas was a whole other ballgame. Winn had explained it to him as such: people put trees in their houses, hang little lights everywhere, sing songs that are only okay to listen to for one month out of the year and to which everyone seems to know the words, and buy each other presents. There was also a large man dressed in a red suit that seemed to be very important.

Kara said she’d host Christmas Eve. They were doing what she called a Secret Santa, and told him he only had to get a present for the person whose named he’d pulled. He’d pulled Winn’s name, and since he’d never been Christmas shopping before, Kara said she’d join him.

She met him at the DEO on the morning of the Saturday before Christmas. It was a particularly quiet day, and thus it did not take Kara long to find him. He was laying on his bunk, dressed in his typical leather jacket and jeans, staring at the ceiling and tossing a ball.

“Hey!” she said cheerily, catching him off guard. He sat up quickly, the glazed over look on his face faded quickly into a smile. 

“Hey, Kara. You ready?”

“Yes! Do you have everything?”

Kara, in an effort to teach Mon-El how to blend in on Earth, had given him a list of things to have with him every time he left to go out somewhere. 

“Wallet with ID, cash, and money rectangle. Jacket in case it’s cold. Cell Phone. Keys even though I don’t have a car or house. Done.”

He thought she would laugh, but her face turned into a frown.

“Kara, I’m just kidding, it doesn’t really bother me not to have a house or a car.”

“You shouldn’t have to stay here on Christmas Eve.” she said, still frowning.

“When is Christmas Eve?” he asked, confused about why this night meant more than any other.

“It’s the day before Christmas, when everyone is coming over to my apartment.”

“I thought that was on Christmas,” he said, confusion growing.

“A lot of families do both. With the Danvers, we spent Christmas Eve with Mom’s side of the family, and it was always a big gathering with a lot of people. We did the secret Santa exchange, had dinner and cookies, and it was always a big deal. Christmas morning was always quieter, just the four of us until Dad died. I kind of preferred the morning. We’d make cinnamon rolls hot chocolate and open presents and Alex and I were always on a sugar rush from all the chocolate in our stockings until we crashed. I miss it,” she trailed off with a faint smile on her face. 

“It sounds wonderful,” he said. 

“No one should have to wake up alone on Christmas morning,” Kara said. “Come stay with me on Christmas Eve.” 

His eyes must have widened in surprise, because she quickly followed up with, “I mean, crash on the couch or something! Because otherwise you’ll be here alone and I’ll be at home alone and it really doesn’t make sense and we don’t have to do anything special, I mean Alex and Mom will come over probably and--”

“I would love to.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling. “We only have a couple of days to finish holiday shopping, so we should probably head out.”

~~~~~~

Mon-El had seriously underestimated the craziness that was holiday shopping. Kara had taken him to a local mall, and it was nothing less than a mob scene. There were people everywhere, milling about, looking for that perfect present for everyone on their list. Kara must have sensed what he was experiencing, because she said, “Don’t worry, we just have to find to get something for Winn and then we can leave.”

“Who do you have to shop for?” he asked.

“I’m not supposed to tell you--that’s why it’s called Secret Santa.”

He gave her a look, and she caved.

“I got James.”

“Do you know what you’re going to get him?”

“No idea. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

He laughed. “Doesn’t he like cameras or something? Newspapers?”

Kara joined in his laugh and shook her head. Suddenly, she put her hand on his arm and pointed to a store labeled “Disney Store”.

“Can we go in here?!” she asked excitedly.

Mon-El nodded, her exuberance making him slightly nervous as to what he was getting himself into.

The so-called Disney store was very colorful--that was his first impression. It was filled with toys, apparel, and the most amount of what Kara called “stuffed animals” that he had ever seen. It appeared to be a store for children, which may explain why National City’s biggest hero was actually bouncing with excitement like a child.

“Do you think you’ll find something for James in here?” he asked, confused as to why they stopped here.

Her cheeks turned a little pink and she said, “No, this is just one of my favorite stores. Remember when we watched Lilo and Stitch?”

His expression was blank.

“During our movie night? Remember, the one with the alien and the little girl and the ‘Ohana means family, family means no one gets left behind’?”

“The cartoon one that you cried at?”

“Yes! That one! And I seem to remember you getting emotional when Mufasa died in Lion King so you have no right to judge.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Right, okay,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Those are Disney movies, and they are iconic here. Every child grows up watching them. Disney is this huge empire, they have movies, a TV channel, theme parks. Disney merchandise is everywhere. It’s aimed at kids, obviously but the movies are great no matter how old you are. Lilo and Stitch is my favorite.” She affectionately patted a stuffed animal in the form of the Stitch character she loved so much. 

“Maybe when you’re over for Christmas we’ll watch more Disney movies.”

He was honestly surprised that she hadn’t rescinded her offer to stay at her apartment. All of the marketing around these holidays seemed to gear it towards family, and strangely, romantic relationships, which was a whole other issue he didn’t understand--and he didn’t fall into either of those categories. But he didn’t say anything, happy to be on her good side for once.

After several hours of shopping, drinking peppermint flavored drinks out of red cups, and people watching, they were done. On the walk back to her apartment, she took the time to point out different things about National City to him, explaining that this time of the year was her favorite to be in the city. Although the decorations of the city at Christmastime were beautiful, he found his gaze kept leading back to her. She was dressed like one of the women in the holiday advertisements--hair down and curly under a black winter hat, with a black dress, red peacoat, and black boots. He had opted for a typical jeans and jacket look, but found himself wishing he’d dressed up a bit more. She hadn’t stopped smiling since they started walking, and her happiness was infectious.

He walked her to the door of her apartment, planning on heading back to the DEO after leaving her. They lingered at her door, chatting about some of the more ridiculous things they’d seen at the mall, before she said:

“You can come in, if you want. You have to wrap that present for Winn, and I can help you.”

He obliged, and followed her into the apartment.

~~~

Though the original intent was to teach Mon-El how to wrap presents, Kara had decided to further Mon-El’s education on Christmas traditions, which was how the Daxamite found himself in the middle of a holiday movie marathon.

(“Really Mon-El, people will think it’s weird if you’ve never seen Love Actually.”)

She made hot chocolate from scratch (her father’s recipe) and as the credits rolled from what Kara called “the most important Christmas romantic comedy of all time,” he found himself trying to find a reason to stay. Supergirl rarely got a day off, between her day job and her moonlighting as a caped crusader, and although he felt a little guilty taking up her free time, he quite enjoyed spending time with just Kara. 

‘I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas,” she said. “This year has flown by. No pun intended.” 

“Which Earth holiday is your favorite?” he asked.

“I love Christmas because it’s all about spending time with friends and family and spreading peace and goodwill. But New Year’s Eve is really fun, too. I think you’ll like that one.” 

“Why?”

“It’s the countdown to the New Year, so everyone stays up until midnight and watches the ball drop and it’s all about drinking and partying and it’s a tradition to kiss someone at midnight.”

“Sounds like my kind of holiday,” he said, “But I think I’ll like Christmas, too.”

“I think you will.”

They were now facing each other on the couch, just a few inches apart. Kara shifted, her knee touching his. The only thing he wanted to do was move closer, but instead said, “I should probably be getting back.”

“Right!” she said, seeming caught of guard. “It’s getting late, we should both get some sleep. I’ll come get you after work on Christmas Eve, okay?”

“Sounds good.” 

She walked him to the door, and before he could stop himself, pulled her into a hug goodbye.

“Thank you for everything today,” he mumbled against her hair.

“Anytime,” she said, arms still around him. “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Christmas Eve was not quite as overwhelming as Mon-El had expected. He spent the day at the DEO with Winn, although since there wasn’t much happening on the alien front, they spent most of the day coming up with super suit ideas just in case Mon-El decided that was the route he wanted to go.

Kara made good on her promise, arriving at the DEO promptly at 5:30pm.

“Alright, guys,” she said to Mon-El and Winn, “Let’s go! The holiday celebration starts at 7:00 which means we have a lot of preparing to do!”

When they didn’t immediately jump up, she barked, “Let’s go!”

The boys scrambled to get their stuff together--which for Mon-El was just his presents to hand out and a an overnight duffle bag. When Winn saw said duffle bag, he teased, “How many presents are you giving out, Santa Claus? "

“It’s my stuff, I’m actually staying at Kara’s tonight.”

Winn’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “Oh, really?” he said, his suggestive tone leaving nothing to the imagination.

“Yeah, she said no one should be alone on Christmas morning.” 

“Interesting,” Winn commented, unable to hide the growing grin on his face.

~~

Kara had severely overestimated the amount of preparing that went into Christmas Eve preparation. Mon-El turned on all of the lights for the decorations while Kara and Winn prepared drinks. Her mother arrived shortly after to cook dinner, which, considering her cooking skills from Thanksgiving, had Mon-El very excited.

The rest of the night made Mon-El understand why this was Kara’s favorite holiday. They ate dinner and dessert, and then sat around the tree opening gifts while Christmas music played softly in the background. J’onn had pulled Mon-El’s name, and had somehow managed to find some Zcardian ale. This, of course, led to Winn declaring that since the aliens could drink, so could everyone else, and pulled out the spiked eggnog he’d made earlier. So they drank, and laughed, and told stories of holidays past. And for the first time since leaving Daxam, Mon-El felt a little bit like he was home.

Eliza and Alex stayed after everyone else had gone home. Kara told them they could stay over, although she didn’t know where everyone would sleep. Both women declined, Alex staying at her place (where even though he couldn’t prove it, Mon-El was convinced she would not be alone), and Eliza was staying at a local hotel as to not impose on her children. Mon-El offered to excuse himself to allow the women some time to spend with just family, but Eliza refused, and so here he was spending his Christmas Eve listening to stories about the Danvers girls growing up. Eventually, both Eliza and Alex headed off to their respective places to stay, after Kara insisted she didn’t need their help cleaning up.

Mon-El helped Kara do the dishes and clean up errant pieces of wrapping paper.

“Are you sick of Christmas movies yet?” she asked him when they were done.

“Hey, we still have two more nights of the holiday season, we might as well enjoy it,” he responded.

“Okay, let me change really quick and then we’ll start it.” 

She came out of her room a minute later dressed in a red shirt and pajama pants with candy canes printed on them. He’d changed into sweatpants and a white tee shirt, and teased her about her over festive spirit. 

She popped the disc into the DVD player and settled on to the couch next to him. “This one is called It’s A Wonderful Life and it’s the best Christmas movie of all time. It might be more of the most classic movies of all time.”

As usual, Kara wasn’t wrong. It was the first black and white movie he’d ever seen, and he definitely understood why people loved it so much. Halfway through, Kara got up to get them peppermint ice cream, and when they finished it she settled back on the couch, resting her head on his shoulder. The affection caught him by surprise, but he returned the gesture by wrapping his arm around her.

It was late by the time the movie ended. She let the credits roll with his arm still around her before getting up to grab some blankets for him to turn the couch into a bed. 

“Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable out here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go get some sleep.”

With a final goodnight, she retreated to her room.

~~~

Besides the whole Daxomite/Kryptonian thing, one major difference between Kara Danvers and Mon-El was that the former was most definitely a morning person, while the later was very much a night person.

This made his task this Christmas morning particularly difficult. He set an alarm to wake him at 6:00 am, guessing that she’d be awake around 7:00. He snuck around as quietly as possible, getting everything ready for when she woke up. Eliza had slipped him the recipe while Kara was in the other room, and he followed it as closely as possible. Right around 7, he could tell Kara was awake as he heard her bathroom door open and shut. Quickly, he turned on all of the Christmas lights and returned to the couch where he waited.

She came out a few minutes later, still in her candy cane pajamas from the previous night. It took her a moment to realize he’d done anything, but the surprised look on her face made his efforts worth it. He’d hung a large stocking up near the tree with her name on it-and it was filled to the brim with Christmas chocolates. Homemade hot chocolate was simmering on the stove, and the apartment was filled with the smell of baking cinnamon rolls. She brought her hands to her face, covering her nose as her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Did you do all of this just for me?” she asked. 

“Merry Christmas, Kara,” he said. “Go open your stocking, we have a few minutes before breakfast is ready.” 

She went through her stocking, pulling out what must have been bags worth the candy canes and holiday chocolates. When she got to the bottom, she found a little box wrapped in red paper.

“What’s this?”

“Open it,” he said softly. “I know I was only supposed to get something for Winn but I saw it at the mall and it reminded me of you.”

Inside was a small silver necklace in the shape of a flower with a word engraved on it. Upon a closer inspection, she saw that the word read ‘Ohana.’ She teared up again, and immediately moved toward him and wrapped her arms around his waist. 

“Thank you, Mon-El.”

“Merry Christmas, Kara.” 

“Merry Christmas to you too.”

In that moment, Christmas, he decided, was the best Earth holiday.


	3. no, no. it's my treat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this awhile back before the episode where James goes to the alien bar and before the attack so just ignore that. Sorry this is so late!! Please enjoy and thank you so so so so much for all the support!! The next chapter will be posted soon and its my favorite I've written so far :)

_98) “No, no, it’s my treat.”_

_OR: James takes a night off and Kara gets free drinks._

_Chapter Three_

It was an indisputable fact that drunk Kara was one of the most fun versions of Kara. James, having never witnessed it, decided to accompany the group to the alien dive bar they were always going on about. And so, Kara, James, Winn, Alex, Maggie, J’onn, and Mon-El headed out for happy hour after work. It was quite the ragtag team--three aliens, two cops, one DEO nerd, and a secret vigilante in training.

James Olsen did not frequent dive bars. In fact, between his day job as the interim CEO of a multimedia super company and his nights fighting crime, he didn’t have much time for bars at all. If he did, this was not the first place he would he picked. It was for this reason he was glad he had such a diverse group of friends, because this bar was like nothing else on the planet.

James had seen Kara in a lot of different situations interacting with a lot of different people, but between being reporter Kara Danvers and Supergirl, it was very rare she got to be just herself. In this bar, surrounded by people who couldn’t have cared less if she was from Krypton, she seemed more at home than he had ever seen her.  
The group split apart quickly into what James assumed was their usual spots at the bar. Alex and Maggie headed towards the pool table, J’onn started to chat with the bartender, Mon-El and Kara found a booth, and Winn spotted a pretty alien lady to chat up. Kara seemed to notice that James was left standing alone and beckoned him to join her and the Daxomite and their table. 

He slid into the seat next to Kara, still observing his surroundings. Being Friday, the bar was particularly busy. Aliens of all kinds milled about, unafraid to show who and what they were. His first instinct as a photographer was to get out his camera, but he respected their privacy and instead chose to observe.

It was a scene not unlike something out of a Star Wars movie. DIfferent races of aliens from all different planets commingled; getting drinks, playing darts, laughing, chatting, and, in what appeared to be a particularly drunk section, dancing. It was what one would expect from any bar at 6:00PM on a Friday, except these patrons ranged from looking exactly like humans to having several arms and purple skin.

J’onn was still chatting with his bartender friend, and James had never seen him smile this much. Maggie was very clearly losing to Alex at pool, he could hear her “C’mon Danvers, give me a break!” comments from across the bar. Winn actually seemed to be faring well with the girl at the bar--she’d moved closer to him and was laughing at something he’d said--something James assumed was probably not as funny as she was making it seem. 

Finally, James turned his attention to his companions at the table. Kara’s hair was, as usual, up, this time in a braid that hung down her back. She kept the glasses but was wearing red lipstick, jeans, and a leather jacket--an outfit he was not used to seeing on her. Mon-El had opted for jeans and a black button down, with just one too many buttons undone. They were laughing about something James hadn’t been listening to.

“Come on,” Mon-El was saying, “We had so much fun the last time. Drunk Kara is so much fun. Do it for me?”

She made a pouting face and responded, “Are you, Mon-El of Daxam, implying that I am not normally fun?”

He grinned, clearly seeing an opportunity to antagonize Kara.

“You’re just saying no because you won’t be able to handle it. Let’s face it--Kryptonians have never been known to handle their liquor.”

Kara promptly turned to James and said, “James, will you excuse me for a second? I have to go to the bar. Would you like anything?”

“Just a beer,” he said, moving out of her way. “Someone has to drive home.”

Mon-El stood as if to follow her. “If we’re testing your limits, I should at least pay.” 

“No, no,” she responded. “It’s my treat. Drinks are on me tonight.”

Mon-El raised his eyebrows but did not object, and sat back down. James joined him. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked the Daxamite. 

“She’ll be fine. She’ll probably have two and then she’ll be wasted and quit. But you’re in for a real treat.” 

Instead of the promised two Aldebaran rums and a beer, Kara returned with a tray of six shots, two of which were set off to the side on a napkin. She took the aforementioned two, placed them in front of James, put the rest down on the table, and brought the tray back to the bar. She sat next to Mon-El this time, who was looking at her with what could only be described as a devilish grin.

“Alex is driving. We, my friends, are drinking.”

James eyed his shots suspiciously.

“James, that’s human whiskey so don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

He was still quite curious about what was in front of her and Mon-El, but before he had the chance to ask she yelled “DRINK!” and both aliens downed their shots. James quickly followed suit.

It took barely a minute for the alcohol to affect Kara and Mon-El, which left James the least drunk.

“Mon-El,” Kara said excitedly, “What if there was more drinks?”

“Kara, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” James tried to say, but to no avail.

“If there was more drinks,” Mon-El said, “then we’d be more drunk!” 

They proceeded to laugh like it was the funniest thing either of them had ever heard.

“You know,” Kara said in a tone that made James quite nervous about where she was headed with this statement, “I’m hot,” she pointed to Mon-El, “You’re hot. And James is hot. We should not have to pay to drink more drinks. Teach me how to get guys to buy me drinks.”

 James knew this was a bad idea, but the whiskey was starting to get to him a little, and he knew this was a trainwreck he would be unable to look away from.

“‘Kay. First, we need to make you even hotter.”

Mon-El took tugged at her braid, pulling the elastic off and letting her hair fall down. He played with it for a moment with his fingers until it fell around her face in loose waves. This made James wonder briefly if Mon-El’s palace guard duties on Daxam included any hair styling of the royal family. Next, he helped her take off her jacket and pull her shirt down a little.

“Perfect!” he declared. “You’re a babe. Supergirl is super hot.”

James took this opportunity to flag down a cocktail waitress and order himself a rum and coke, feeling he’d need just a bit more to drink in order to prevent himself from stopping them.

“I want you to try it without my help first. Go up to a guy and start chatting.” 

“Which guy?”

“You pick one!” 

Kara scoffed but obliged, scanning to the bar until she found someone interesting. She marched over to him, and struck up a conversation. This was one of those moments where he very much wished he had super hearing. Mon-El, apparently either had super hearing or was just very drunk, as he was giggling quite uncontrollably.

“How’s she doing?” James asked.

Mon-El shook his head, laughing still. When the waitress brought his cocktail, James ordered an Aldebaran rum for Mon-El in hopes that it would distract him or at least put a temporary stop to the giggling.

Kara returned a few minutes later with a triumphant smile, two more shots, and a phone number scribbled on a napkin.

Mon-El, apparently attributing her success to himself, held out his hands like he was going to high five her, but instead locked his fingers with her, saying, “Kara Zor-El, I am so proud of you.”

They continued like this for some time, Kara flirting for drinks, Mon-El celebrating with her when she got one and buying one for her when she failed. The amount the both of them were ingesting made James wonder if Kryptonians and Daxamites could get alcohol poisoning. Eventually, the rest of the team made their way back to the booth, joining in on the antics until it was clear the two aliens had reached their limit. Several glasses of water and at least five orders of mozzarella sticks later, they were headed home. Despite being the designated driver, Alex was not thrilled about driving everyone back to their respective homes, and thus it was decided everyone, except J’onn, who had mysteriously vanished earlier in the night, would crash at Kara’s.

Naturally, the intoxicated aliens did not make the trip to Kara’s easy.

“Alex. Alex. Alex,” Kara said, slurring her words.

“Yes, Kara?”

“We need food.”

“Kara, you just ate three whole orders of mozzarella sticks.”

“Alex. I need FOOD. If I don’t have a calzone right now, I will die.”

“No, you won’t, but we can stop for calzones if it’s really that important.”

“You know how at the DEO we hunt aliens and save the world and stuff? This is more important than that,” Kara responded.

And that is the story of how James Olsen, interim CEO of Catco and Pulitzer winning photojournalist, ended up at a calzone place designed for college kids with two DEO agents, a cop, and two drunk aliens at 2:00AM. 

After a serious struggle to order, Mon-El snatched Kara’s credit card away from her when she tried to pay. 

“No, no. It’s my treat.”

She kissed him on the cheek, James watching as Mon-El turned uncharacteristically pink.

Finally, after much struggle, and way too much cheese, the group had made it back to Kara’s apartment. The twenty-somethings were sprawled across the living room, sleeping on various couches and air mattresses. James assumed everyone was asleep until he heard Kara whisper to Mon-El, “Can we do this again next week?”

“Anything you want, Supergirl. Goodnight”


	4. come here, let me fix it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter so far so I hope y'all enjoy!! I wrote this pre-kiss but I suppose it doesn't really matter. Thank you again for all of your support-the response to this fic has been completely overwhelming in the best possible way

_97) “Come here, let me fix it.”_

_Or: Kara and Mon-El (almost) eat breakfast._

_Chapter Four_

One of the main problems with fighting crime and also having a day job was all of the wardrobe changes. Kara and Mon-El had started their day by stopping a carjacking, and now back at Kara’s apartment, were struggling to get ready for their respective jobs. Of the two, Kara was faring better. She was dressed in her usual skirt and sweater, and was making a couple of egg sandwiches for breakfast.

Mon-El still had a way to go before he was ready.

“Breakfast is almost ready!” Kara called, hoping it would motivate him to come out of the bathroom, where he’d been for a suspiciously long time.

Her plan worked, and he came rushing into the kitchen. He was mostly dressed--dark jeans, belt, dress shoes, and dark green dress shirt completely unbuttoned, and black tie hung undone around his shoulders.

“Um, Mon-El,” Kara said, “You know you’re not dressed all the way, right?”

With look down and a surprised “Oh!”, he quickly buttoned his shirt and tied his tie as Kara tried to focus less on his exposed chest and more on the breakfast sandwiches.

“Hey,” she said, her voice a little higher than normal. “Do you want orange juice or milk?”

“Juice, but let me get it. You’ve done everything else, sit down.”

She did sit for a moment, but got back up almost immediately to help him bring the plates and glasses over to the table.

He was standing in front of the stove, and she noticed the oven was still on from the biscuits. She reached around him to turn it off. In the close proximity to him, she noticed his tie was crooked and he’d missed a few buttons on his shirt.

“Your tie is messed up, she said. “Come here, let me fix it.”

For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she didn’t just tell him to fix it himself. Maybe it was because he’d need a mirror, which would involve going back into the bathroom where she suspected, due to his very nice looking skin, he’d been using her expensive skin products, and then he’d get distracted and their breakfast would get cold and even though they had plenty of time she was trying to keep him focused and--before she could stop herself she found her hands fixing his tie, and then moving down to get the buttons on his shirt.

He inhaled sharply when her fingers touched his chest.

“Sorry,” she said softly. “You missed a couple.”

He grabbed her hand and she subconsciously moved closer. They were mere inches apart now, her hands wrapped in his, hovering inches above his chest. She could feel him gazing down at her, and her eyes slowly moved up to meet his. His hands released hers and moved to her waist. Hers moved up to his neck, and before she could stop herself she was loosening the top of his tie, undoing the top buttons of his shirt. He moved closer to her, bringing one hand up to her cheek, the other one pulling her closer and his lips were almost on hers and she couldn’t breathe or think or--

_KNOCK KNOCK_

“Kara, it’s Winn!” the voice on the other side of the door yelled. “Sorry to just drop by, but there is something I need to talk to you about!”

She took a step back from Mon-El, biting her lip to keep the giggles that for some reason were bubbling up from coming out. His intense gaze softened to a smile, and in a surprising gesture he quickly kissed her on her temple and went to get the door.

Of course, Mon-El had been slightly distracted and had forgotten to fix his clothes, so the scene Winn entered into was Mon-El to a half undone shirt and a loose tie and Kara tucking her sweater into her skirt while fussing over breakfast.

“Hey Winn, what’s up?” she greeted in the breathless way that was usually reserved for her flustered post saving the world way.

“Just some DEO stuff Alex wanted me to tell you so I just stopped by on my way in.”

“Kara,” Mon-El said, “I should probably head to work, I'll see you later, okay?”

“Right! Don't forget your breakfast!”

He grabbed his breakfast sandwich, nodded to Winn, and dashed out the door.

“Do you think he's going to notice his shirt and tie weren't done before he gets to work?” Winn asked.

Kara turned red in response, and Winn decided he didn't want to know.


	5. i'll walk you home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the interest of complete honesty, I'm not too sure about this chapter. But I hope you guys enjoy!! I have up to chapter nine written so the plan is to still update regularly. Thank you again for all of your support!

_96) “I'll walk you home.”_   
  
_Or: Mon-El learns that life is not like Grey’s Anatomy._

_Chapter Five_

They were training at the DEO when she got the call.

The bargain was this: for every training session Mon-El did with Kara, she would introduce him to a new National City restaurant.

On the menu tonight was National City’s famous Cheesecake House. Kara was especially excited about this one, as she said cheesecake was one of Earth’s greatest inventions.

Before they could venture out on their cheesecake adventure, she was enjoying beating him at their training session. But he’d been practicing on his own, and it was his turn to beat her. She looked away for a second--just a second--and he used a move Alex had taught him to hit her in the back of the knees before she could stop him. She dropped, and he quickly moved on top of her so she couldn’t move.

This was the scene Alex entered into: a breathless Kara, on the ground, and Mon-El, straddling her and laughing, clearly ecstatic at his victory.

“Kara,” Alex said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you have a phone call I think you should take.”

Mon-El saw the worried expression on Alex’s face and knew whatever the news was, it wasn’t good. He jumped up, and offered a hand to Kara to help her up.

Kara quickly walked over and grabbed her phone, answering with a “This is Kara.”

Only moments into the conversation, her smile quickly faded to a look of horror, and her hand moved to cover her mouth. Alex moved to her side, putting her arm on Kara’s back. Mon-El moved closer as well, but not wanting to impose, he stayed a few feet back.

Alex helped Kara sit down, and sat down next to her. The older Danvers sister looked at Mon-El, and then indicated to Mon-El to sit at Kara’s other side.

“Okay,” Kara said into the phone. “Okay, I’ll be there soon, thank you.”

Mon-El had seen what he thought was Kara’s full range of emotions. He had seen her happy, drunk, concerned, fuming, passionate, upset--but nothing like this.

She propped her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. Her breathing was labored, but not breathless as before, more like she was exerting an extended effort not to cry.

“Kara?” Alex asked, “What happened?”

Kara’s breathing slowed, and she slowly looked up. Her face was tracked with tears, her makeup smudged and running.

“James is in the hospital.”

She paused for a moment.

“James is in the hospital. He broke his leg and his wrist. He had a concussion and his face his injured. He has to undergo surgery for his leg.”

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know,” Kara answered. “They’re going to tell me when I get there. I have to talk to the police there.”

She stood up. “I have to change.”

“I’m going to call Maggie and see if she knows anything. I’m driving you over, I don’t want you flying when you’re this upset. Mon-El, will you walk with her to the locker room?”

Mon-El nodded and Alex put an arm around Kara. “It’s going to be okay.”

Kara said nothing.

The walk to the locker room was done in silence. They walked side by side, arms touching occasionally. He wanted to reach out, but resisted, unsure of what she needed in her emotional state. She changed quickly while waited he waited outside.

“Kara?” he said when she exited. “You know, if you need anything I’m here. If you want to talk, or punch something, or whatever.”

She gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

She waited a moment before speaking again. “Will you come to the hospital with me?”

“Of course.”

Maggie picked them up at the DEO to give them a police escort to the hospital. Mon-El vaguely wondered what excuse Alex had given Detective Sawyer as to why Alex’s “kid sister” and her “pretty boy friend” (as Maggie called them) were spending their afternoon at a top-secret government agency. Alex occupied the front seat, while Mon-El and Kara sat in the back of the police SUV. While Mon-El’s hearing was not as sharp as Kara’s, he could still clearly hear the hushed conversation between the cop and DEO agent.

“Do you know what happened?” Alex asked.

“No details yet, I’ll see what the officers at the hospital know. He was found in an alley, close to a jewelry store robbery. The suspects got away.”

“They don’t think that James…”

“No,” Maggie said. “He was beaten badly, it doesn’t look like he was involved.”

Kara must have been listening, because she winced. Mon-El put a comforting hand on her arm.

“If anything,” Maggie continued, “They think he was trying to stop it.”

Alex was silent, and Mon-El had the feeling she knew something she wouldn’t say. Maggie drove the rest of the way with the lights on, getting them to the hospital in no time.

Kara was still silent upon arrival to the hospital. The lady at the reception desk directed them towards James’ room. As the four of them walked down the hall, Kara’s shock seemed to fade into worry. Her pace quickened, her steps starting to shake the ground. Alex put her hand on her sister’s arm. The younger Danvers’ sister did not slow, but softened her footfalls. She practically raced into James’s room. Alex followed, but Maggie put a hand up before Mon-El could enter.

“We should give them a minute,” she said. Mon-El nodded, and shut the door, leaning against the wall beside it.

Mon-El had never been in an Earth hospital. The walls were overwhelmingly white, with posters about reducing the spread of germs plastered on them. It wasn’t quite like the doctor show, there was less running around and screaming and a general lack of flirting. The smell was what caught him the most off guard. It was something he’d never smelled before and something he hoped he’d never smell again--a mix of sickness and sanitizing agents and something else he couldn’t quite place.

Maggie was standing a few feet away from him, leaning against the wall with one foot against it and arms crossed. She, too, was observing her surroundings, something Mon-El assumed she always did because of her background in law enforcement.

Her law enforcement training must have also awarded her the ability to read minds--or maybe just people--because she spoke the words he had just been thinking, “You can hear them, can’t you?”

He could, and had been trying hard not to listen in order to afford Kara some privacy. But his worry for Kara was growing. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since getting the call. He would have expected anger, tears--anything but silence.

So he nodded at Maggie’s question and turned his attention to the closed door, focusing on the conversation behind it. James was awake, but albeit not by much judging by the faint sound of his voice.

Kara was speaking. “James, I don’t understand why you won’t tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what happened,” was James’ quiet response.

“James Olsen,” Kara said, her voice rising, “I have known you for awhile now and I know when you’re lying. Just tell me what happened.”

“Kara..” James trailed off.

Mon-El could hear Kara’s breathing quicken and her voice start to break as if she was going to cry.

“Why didn’t you call me? I could have helped you! Were you trying to stop it? By yourself?! Are you crazy?”

She was now obviously crying. Mon-El heard steps which he assumed were Alex’s, due to Kara’s outburst of “Don’t touch me!”

Her voice rose again as she turned her focus back to James, and Mon-El could tell Maggie could now hear the conversation.

“You need surgery! You could have died! You could have called any one of us--J’onn, me, Mon-El! Hell, even Alex and Maggie are more trained for this than you.”

She stopped her tirade only to sob. Mon-El made eye contact with Maggie, and she nodded in agreement, again knowing what he was thinking without him saying it.

Kara had only been this upset once before, and it had taken J’onn to stop it and several drywall repairmen to fix the damage. Mon-El swung open the door right as Kara spun her fist towards the wall. Alex moved to intervene, but Mon-El was quicker. He intercepted her punch, wincing as her hand struck his. She yelled in frustration, and he put one hand on her shoulder, bringing the other up to her cheek. His thumb moved across her cheekbone.

“Kara,” he said, softly. “It’s okay.”

Suddenly, her knees buckled. He caught her, wrapping her arms around her as she leaned against him. Her head was against his shoulder, and he felt her tears soaking through his shirt.

“What is the point of being Supergirl if I can’t even protect my own friends?”

“Sshhh,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

Alex moved over to James’ bedside.

“We should probably go. We’ll be back soon,” she said. “She hasn’t been sleeping.”

James nodded, his eyes not leaving Kara.

Mon-El took a small step back from the aforementioned hero, putting his hand back on her cheek to wipe away her tears. Mon-El moved his arm to wrap around her shoulders, guiding her out of the hospital room.

Several police officers entered as the trio left the hospital room. Alex quietly thanked Maggie for intervening, allowing Kara the chance to talk with James before the police got involved.

They stopped at the coffee stand in the hospital lobby. Mon-El bought Kara a hot chocolate, hoping it would help make her feel better.

“Thank you,” she said, speaking for the first time since the hospital room. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “You okay?”

“I think there’s something going on with James. I should stay here and talk to him again.”

Alex responded before Mon-El could say anything. “You need to go home and get some sleep. Maggie and I can stay here and I’ll call you before he goes into surgery. Come back when you’re feeling better.”

Kara made a face as though she was about to object, but then thought better of it.

“I’ll call Winn and let him know what’s going on.”

Mon-El stood with Alex and Maggie while she made the call.

“Will you make sure she gets home okay?” Alex asked.

“Of course,” he responded, and then: “You know something about what happened here, don’t you?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

Mon-El would have pushed her further, but Kara was walking back towards them.

“Winn is on his way. I told him to find you when he gets here. I’ll rest until it’s time for the surgery on his leg.”

“Kara,” Alex said, apparently not believing the strong facade her sister had put on. “He’s going to be okay.”

Kara nodded, hugged her sister, and said a quick goodbye and thank you to the detective.

Upon exiting the hospital, Kara said to Mon-El, “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I want to,” he said, gently wrapping his hand around hers. “I’ll walk you home.”

The walk was mostly quiet, the fresh air seeming to make her feel better as her cheeks returned to their usual rosy color and her lips turned up into a faint smile.

“Kara?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“Do hospitals always smell like that?”

“Yes, usually.”

“Do doctors really have sex in there? Even with that awful smell?”

Kara laughed, and Mon-El felt a strange jolt in his chest at the sound.

“No, I think that’s mostly just on television.”

“Oh,” he responded.

As they reached the door to Kara’s apartment, she asked him, “Do you want to come in and watch a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy with me? I’m not really going to be able to sleep.”

“Sure,” he said, following her inside.

“And Mon-El?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for walking me home.”

“Of course.”

She smiled at him--a real genuine smile--and for the first time since leaving the hospital, he was sure she was going to be okay.


	6. have a good day at work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is super short, but super fluffy! Hope you enjoy, and as always, thank you so much for your comments and support!!

_95) “Have a good day at work.”_

_Or: Mon-El discovers TLC wedding shows._

_Chapter Six_

One would think that alien fights and general disasters would slow at night as the city went to sleep. Unfortunately for Supergirl and the DEO, this was not always the case. What had started was a marathon of reality wedding shows (“Mon-El, if you’re going to go to Eve’s wedding you have to know how Earth weddings work.”) had ended in nonstop calls from Alex--fire in an apartment building downtown, drunk and disorderly aliens outside a bar on Lexington, attempted mugging in the park, breaking and entering in the science museum--the list went on. At 4AM, it seemed to have finally calmed down. Mon-El and Kara were settled on her couch with a drink.

“I have to leave for work in four hours,” Kara whined, moving closer to the Daxamite.

“Well, maybe you should go to bed,” Mon-El, taking a drink from his glass.

“Have to finish this first,” she said, holding her drink up. “I need this.”

After having to drag five drunken aliens into Maggie’s special extraterrestrial drunk tank, he didn’t disagree.

“We never saw which dress that girl picked,” Mon-El said, remembering what they’d been watching when Alex first called.

“I’m sure it’ll be on again soon,” Kara said. “Do you know enough about Earth’s wedding customs yet to go to Eve’s wedding?”

“Dress nice. Give lots of compliments. Make lots of small talk. Do not get trashed and go home with the maid of honor. Or the bride.”

Kara laughed. “Yes, I’d say you’re ready. Isn’t it going to be weird going to the wedding of someone you slept with?”

Mon-El shook his head. “I’ve never been to a wedding for someone who chose who they were going to marry. On Daxam, everything is arranged.”

“That’s the best part of weddings,” Kara said. “There’s so much love and you can tell how happy the bride and groom are. If you’re single it can be a little uncomfortable, especially if you don’t have anyone to dance with. But we’ll have fun.”

“You can always dance with me,” he said.

Kara smiled, and put her half finished drink down.

“Thank you for all of you help tonight,” she said. “You did really good out there.”

“Well, I had a great teacher.”

She smiled again, and leaned against his shoulder.

“What is with you and all the cheesy lines lately? Are you and Winn watching romantic comedies without me?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he responded, placing his empty glass on a nearby table.

“I don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” she said. “I want to stay in and watch more wedding shows.”

“What’s with you and all the whining lately?” Mon-El teased, but grabbed the remote to see what was on.

The wedding marathon they’d been watching earlier was still on, and Kara delighted in remarking on all of the dresses, and tearing up when the bride found the dress that was regarded as “The One.” While Mon-El did not exactly understand this custom, he had to admit it was amusing to watch. What proved more amusing, however, was watching the Kryptonian hero at his side fight to stay awake to see which dress the girls on TV picked. As she started to drift off, her head settled against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her, his free hand playing gently with her hair until he was sure she was asleep. Quietly, he turned the TV off and picked her up. He carried her to her room, placing her gently in bed and pulled the covers over her.

She stirred slightly, and reached out for him as he moved to leave.

“‘Night,” she mumbled quietly, and he honestly wasn’t sure if she was even awake.

“Shhh, go back to sleep. You have to be up in a couple hours.”

He kissed her forehead gently.

“Have a good day at work.”

And with one last glance at the sleeping superhero, he left.


	7. i dreamt about you last night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This exists in a slightly altered universe where Maggie knows that Kara is Supergirl but her and Alex aren't actually together (because I wrote this before they were). Also, this is my favorite chapter I've written so far-I was cackling in the library writing it. As always, I couldn't do this without all of your support. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments, I truly wish I had time to respond to them all!!

94) _“I dreamt about you last night.”_  

 _Or: Winn learns some new things about his friends._  

_Chapter Seven_

 

Winn Schott JR observed a lot of things as an agent of the DEO.

For example, J’onn J’onzz really loved pumpkin seeds. Winn had started noticing bags of them stashed around the agency a few weeks after starting at the DEO. At first he assumed they were Kara’s (girl had a penchant for snacks), but noticed that in particularly stressful battles, J’onn could be found munching on them while communicating with Supergirl. Thus, as tensions rose with M’gann, Winn had started stopping on his way in to get bags of pumpkin seeds, putting them in all of the Martian’s favorite hiding spots. One day, after Kara and Mon-El had gotten themselves fairly roughed up in a battle with a rogue alien, Winn spotted J’onn snacking on the seeds Winn had stashed for him. He raised the bag and gave Winn a solemn nod of thanks. The tech smiled, and returned to tending to his injured friends.

Winn also observed that whenever Detective Maggie Sawyer was helping on a case, Alex Danvers put an extra effort into her appearance. Winn first noticed it when Maggie was scheduled to come in for a training sessions with J’onn, Kara, and Mon-El on how to defend yourself against someone with super strength.

_“Alex, are you wearing lipstick?” he’d asked incredulously.  
_

_“Just because I am a DEO agent and a doctor doesn’t mean I’m not a woman!” she’d snapped back.  
_

_“No, I think it looks great!”  
_

_“Thank you.”_

After the session, Maggie also complimented Alex’s makeup, and Winn watched Alex’s cheeks turn pink.

(During the next training session, Winn observed that Maggie was wearing a shirt that was probably a bit too tight for the moves she was supposed to be learning.)

Winn considered sharing his observations with someone, but really the only person removed from all of it was James, and most of their free time was spent together fighting crime, and decidedly not gossiping. 

So Winn Schott JR, tech expert, best friend to Supergirl, and DEO agent extraordinaire, kept his many observations to himself. As time went on, he noticed J’onn sharing his pumpkin seeds with Mon-El when Kara was in a fight the Daxamite was unable to assist with. He noticed Maggie’s visits frequented and Alex seemed more relaxed and happier than he’d ever seen her. He noticed James stopped by less after watching a training session between Kara and Mon-El that ended with the former straddling the latter, laughing as she pinned him.

Kara and Mon-El’s training sessions were not Winn’s favorite to observe.

Neither were they Maggie’s, evidently, as she called out, “Get a room!” before walking away from them.  

This particular morning, Kara was not holding back. Usually, she used a little restraint seeing as she was stronger than him, but today she unleashed it all. She hit him, throwing him up against the wall. Without even giving him a chance to breathe, she moved over to him, pinning him against the wall he'd just made a significant dent in. Their voices were low, but Winn could still hear everything they were saying, although judging by the content of the conversation, neither was aware of that fact.

“You going to fight back or what?” Kara taunted. 

Mon-El smirked. “I guess I’m still tired from the last night.” 

Kara faltered, Winn choked on the coffee he was drinking, and Mon-El used the opportunity to leap over Kara, grab her shoulder, and pull her to the ground.

Mon-El spoke again, his voice so low Winn was surprised (and mildly horrified) that he could make out the words.

“Or maybe I have enough energy for round two.”

The moment was so intense, so charged, that Winn was 100% positive it was about to lead to a makeout session, so the tech was quite surprised when Kara started to laugh. 

The Daxamite, who had been hovering over her joined in her laughter, sitting beside her. Winn dropped his coffee cup in surprise, and in an effort to catch it, dropped the books he’d had in his other hand. They landed with a thud on the ground,causing the aliens to turn their attention to Winn. 

Winn did not like being the one observed. 

Kara and Mon-El stood up quickly, awkwardly jumping apart and brushing nonexistent dust off of their clothes. Winn had gathered his things by the time they reached him, and the trio (training session evidently over) walked back to the bullpen.

~~~

Winn Schott JR tried not to observe Kara and Mon-El. 

The two had spent an increasing amount of time together, under the guise of what Kara called “training” and “education of Earthly customs,” which considering their eyerolls whenever Kara said it, Alex and J’onn seemed to suspect something else was going on.

At the moment, the pair stood several yards away from Winn’s desk, where Kara was wrapping Mon-El’s wrist in an ace bandage.

One would think, given both aliens had well above average hearing, that they would think to keep their voices down when discussing things they wished to keep private. Unfortunately for Winn in his endeavour not to be nosy, this did not seem to occur to them. Kara and Mon-El were not known for their subtlety, and so Winn sat, listening to his friends have a conversation that not enough beer in the world would help him forget. 

“I dreamt about you last night,” Mon-El said to her in what he apparently thought was a whisper.

“Mon-El,” Kara admonished.

“I did though.”

Winn did what he thought was a subtle glance towards them. Kara’s cheeks were turning pink, but she moved closer to Mon-El, bringing herself inches from him. Despite this closeness, she continued to speak at a volume that Winn could hear. 

“And what happened in this dream?”

“How about I show you later?” was Mon-El’s response.

Winn chose this moment to cough very loudly.

The aliens jumped apart--but not before Mon-El whispered, “I’ll see you tonight.”

Winn considered telling them he could hear everything they said, but instead elected to pull out a bag of pumpkin seeds, and began to munch on them.

Mon-El walked over to Winn, grabbing a small handful of pumpkin seeds for himself.

“Stressed about something?” the Daxamite asked.  
  
Winn simply buried his head in his hands and groaned in response.


	8. take my seat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (super belated) New Years to everyone!! I actually wrote this before the New Year forgetting it would be published way after. It's super fluffy and I hope you enjoy!! Again, thank you so much for all of the wonderful comments!!!

93) “Take my seat.”

Or: Mon-El attends his first New Year’s Party

Chapter Eight

Lena Luthor was a lot of things, Mon-El had learned, but his favorite thing about her was that she threw one hell of a party.

This one, she had reassured Kara, was not a front to capture criminals, but a celebration in honor of the New Year and her new friends. 

Lena had invited Kara and all of her friends, which was how Mon-El was currently at Kara’s apartment with the whole gang waiting for her to get ready.

Everyone was else was long since dressed. Winn and James had made it their personal mission to help Mon-El branch out from his typical jeans and T-shirt, but he was still confused about the attire for tonight. Alex was dressed in a black dressed that was covered in what Winn called “sequins.” Mon-El had told her she looked very pretty, and she had graciously smiled and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek. Maggie, who was in black skinny jeans, heels, and a sparkly top, had proceeded to remind Alex that it was only 8:30 and they had several more hours of drinking ahead of them and maybe she should cool it with the champagne.

James opted for an all black suit, Winn for a grey one. Mon-El, who was not really one for suit jackets, wore black pants, a white dress shirt, and suspenders. He wore the glasses Kara had given for him, and Winn had taken to calling him “the last hipster of Daxam,” whatever that meant. 

“Kara!” Winn called, “We’re going to be late!”

“Can you send Alex in here?” she yelled from her room. 

Alex was currently filling several flasks worth of “alcohol for the aliens” and shoving them into her purse. 

“Uhh, Alex is a little busy.”

“Okay can you come in here then?” she asked. 

Winn obliged, leaving Mon-El alone on the living room with James as Maggie helped Alex with the booze. 

“Nervous?” James asked Mon-El, as the latter fidgeted with his glasses. 

Mon-El didn't confirm or deny this, instead asking, “So basically this is just a party to celebrate the New Year?”

“Yes.”

“And everyone drinks a lot and wears sparkly things and we watch a ball fall?”

James laughed. 

“I'm sorry,” Mon-El said. “Kara usually explains all of this to me but things have been…”

He trailed off as Kara entered the room. Both he and James inhaled sharply. 

She wore a tight, long sleeved, black top that was short enough to expose some of her toned stomach. Her skirt was silver and sequined, tight fitting and hitting above the knee. Her shoes were silver flats, her makeup done more than Mon-El had ever seen, and her hair in a complicated braided updo.

“You look beautiful,” James said, taking the words out of Mon-El’s mouth. 

Before she could respond, Alex said, “Finally, you’re ready! Let’s go. Don’t want to be late for the alcohol. I mean party.”

Kara grabbed her purse, and the group headed out.  
~~~

Upon arrival, Mon-El began to understand why everyone told him he’d love New Year’s Eve. 

Lena had rented out the ballroom of a hotel for the evening. Two large screens showed the infamous countdown he’d heard so much about. The room was filled with people, dressed similarly in black and grey suits and sparkly dresses. Servers milled about with trays of champagne, a band performed music on a stage off to the side, people laughed and danced and drank.

Alex, to no one’s surprise, marched right over to a champagne carrying waitress with a laughing Maggie in tow. Mon-El watched as the two grabbed drinks, smiling and giggling as they participated in the festivities. 

James, Winn, and Kara walked over to enthusiastically greet Lena. Mon-El followed them somewhat hesitantly. Despite his love for parties, ones on Earth such as these made him somewhat uncomfortable. Holiday parties were coated in tradition, little expected behaviors and customs he was unaware of. Usually, in these situations, he stayed with Kara, letting her lead the way and make sure he wasn’t doing anything that would be considered unusual. 

Kara was still excitedly chatting with Lena. Mon-El, not wanting to interrupt her, wandered over to Maggie and Alex, who were well on their way to second glasses of champagne. 

“Mon-El!” Alex sputtered excitedly. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice changing and her expression changing into worried one at the sight of his depressed facial expression. 

“I’m still unsure about this whole New Years thing,” he said, and with a glance towards Kara: “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Mon-El, darling,” (The Daxamite’s eyebrows shot up at the pet name.)  
“You’re not going to mess this up for Kara. She’s the most awkward person ever. If anyone is going to mess this up, it’s her. Especially because,” She patted her purse and dropped her voice to a stage whisper, “I brought alcohol for the aliens!”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a metal flask. After obtaining a rocks glass with ice in it, she poured the contents of the flask into the cup and handed it to Mon-El. He took a quick drink and began to feel the effects almost immediately. 

“So the whole point of the evening is to get drunk?” he asked.

“Basically,” Maggie answered, while Alex fiddled with the absurd amount of booze in her purse. “On New Year’s Eve, everyone drinks a lot and gets dressed up. Champagne is popular because it’s a celebration. In the last ten seconds of the year, everyone counts down until midnight, and when the new year strikes, everyone cheers and finds someone to kiss. 

“Kiss?”

“That’s the tradition,” she said, her eyes scanning the room.

“Who’s the lucky lady going to be?”

Mon-El found his gaze directed at Kara, who caught his eye and smiled warmly.

Maggie elbowed Mon-El playfully and winked. 

Kara had finished up her conversation with Lena and moved over to where Mon-El, her sister, and Maggie were standing.

Alex excitedly handed her sister a glass similar to the one Mon-El just had. Kara raised her eyebrows but took a sip.

“Drink faster,” Alex insisted.

“It’s only 9:30,” Kara said. “I feel like I should take it slow.”

Maybe it was the rum, maybe it was the party, and maybe it was just that things had been so strange between them lately and he just wanted them to go back to the way things were before--”That’s just like a Kryptonian.”

Kara’s eyebrows furrowed in anger, and Alex slapped her hand over her mouth in a drunkenly over exaggerated gesture of surprise. 

Mon-El considered backtracking, but instead held his gaze. “From what I’ve heard, this is not the night for taking it slow.”

Kara downed the rest of her glass and motioned for Alex to pour her another one. The DEO agent got one for both of aliens, and they quickly finished their glasses.

Alien booze was somewhat more potent than regular alcohol, which meant it didn’t take long for Kara and Mon-El to be on Alex’s level.

Mon-El had seen Kara drink before. He had seen her tipsy, drunk, and even fairly close to wasted. 

Mon-El had never seen Kara like this. Maybe it was the party, or the fact that she was temporarily free of Supergirl responsibilities, or her friends and sister egging her on, but for the first time since landing on Earth, Mon-El watched Kara Danvers completely let go. 

Currently, it was twenty minutes to midnight and the aforementioned superhero was bouncing around on the dance floor with Lena. Both girls had removed their shoes and let down their hair, and appeared to be having the time of their lives. Dancing on Earth, as Mon-El had learned tonight, was quite different than dancing on Daxam. He wasn't even sure what Kara and Lena were currently doing could be called dancing. It was mostly just the two jumping up and down, screaming the words to some song he didn’t know the words to. This dance in particular seemed to tire her out, as after it ended she walked sluggishly over to the table where Mon-El was seated. Most of the seats had been moved aside, leaving just the one he was sitting at open. 

He jumped up, saying, “Take my seat.”

Kara sat, and Mon-El pulled a chair from another table to sit next to her. 

She pulled her chair closer to him, placing her hand on his arm. 

“Mon-El,” she said. “This year has been so crazy.”

He nodded in agreement. The proximity to her was making his heart pound in his chest, and he decided the best thing to do was down the rest of the flask Alex had given him. 

Kara giggled. “If this time last year someone had told me I would be counting down to the new year drunk with a Daxamite I would have laughed. If someone said that the Daxamite would be one of my closest friends I probably would have punched them.”

She smiled at him and his heart started pounding even harder in his chest. She moved even closer to him, and their chairs faced each other as their knees touched. 

“So what happens now?” he asked, and he wasn't even sure if he was referring to the countdown or how her hand had shifted to his leg. 

“At midnight everyone says ‘Happy New Year!’ and I'm sure Lena will have confetti or something and we all drink champagne.”

“And?” he asked, his voice low. 

“And sometimes people kiss.”

At that moment, the music was turned down and the volume on the TVs went up. 

“And with one minute left to go, we are live from Times Square!”

Kara clapped her hands excitedly. The whole party had their attention turned to the screens, servers had refilled champagne glasses, and everyone chattered excitedly. Despite the commotion in the ballroom, Mom-El found his gaze concentrated on Kara. 

She was right. This year had been one like no other. He had ended up stranded on a planet light years away from home, and while there was no hope of returning to the life he held on Daxam, he had found a pretty good one here on Earth. He had a job he liked, a good group of friends, and in general was happy with his new life. The best part of this year though, cliche as it was to say, was sitting right in front of him. 

Kara was bouncing excitedly in her seat as the people of the party began to countdown to the new year. 

Five!

Mon-El was experiencing what Maggie had explained to him as “butterflies” in his stomach.

Four!

While everyone’s attention was turned to the screens, he couldn’t pull his eyes away from her.

Three!

He inched closer to her, and she turned her gaze to him, moving her hand so that it rested on his arm.

Two!

Their eyes were locked on each other.

One!

She moved her hands to his face and brought her lips against his.

“Happy New Year!” the crowd cheered. 

And as Kara moved her lips against his, he decided it would in fact be, a happy new year.


	9. i saved you a piece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place some time after their kiss they both pretended not to remember
> 
> Sorry this took so long!! My writing tends to be very dialogue heavy, so I challenged myself with this one to cut back. Hope you enjoy, and as always, all of your support means the world to me and I wish I was able to respond to it all!!
> 
> (ps hermesmultivitamins if you want to hang out with me on tumblr!)

_92) “I saved you a piece.”_

_Or: Mon-El has a rough day with an interesting end._

_Chapter Nine_

“It was one of those days.”

That’s probably how Winn would have described it at least. Mon-El was still adjusting to Earth phrases.

His day had started, as so many lately did, with Alex waking him with a situation that required his and Supergirl’s attention. So he jumped out of bed, quickly dressed and raced out the door.

At 4:30am.

Naturally, having only slept for three hours, he was already slightly irritated. Arriving at the scene to discover it was a bar brawl that had spilled into the streets and was disrupting early morning traffic only caused his annoyance level to grow. After a forty five minutes of coordinating with local authorities, the crowd dispersed and the participants were either at home or in custody.

He then sluggishly made his way back to the DEO.

In weeks prior, he would have headed back to Kara’s where she would have cooked him breakfast and let him nap on her couch. But since things had been so awkward between them, he decided to not even allow her the chance to offer, instead returning to his cot at the DEO.

The next pleasant surprise of the day came at 8:45AM, when Winn woke Mon-El to tell him that there was a bus accident downtown and his help was needed with the evacuation. And so Mon-El redressed and assisted Kara with getting everyone to safety. This process finished just in time for Mon-El to make it to work in time for his AM bartending shift.

11:00am to 5:00pm was hardly the most profitable shift, and Mon-El spent most of it cleaning and doing inventory. None of his less than ten patrons were particularly chatty, and thus the Daxamite spent his day scrubbing strange stains off of the floor behind the bar. At promptly 5:15, his friends appeared for happy hour, but a report of an alien altercation outside an expensive clothing store meant Mon-El didn’t even have time to join them on the opposite side of the bar before they were all dashing off to save the day. One alien altercation turned into stopping an attempted mugging which turned into rescuing a cat that was stuck into a tree which turned into--well, you get the point. 

By the time the group was done saving people, none of them really felt like going out. So, they headed towards Kara’s while Alex called in a pizza order. 

Of course, right as he was about to enter Kara’s apartment for the first time in ages (and maybe get a chance to talk to her about their recent awkwardness), his phone rang.

The nighttime bartender had slipped and broken her wrist and thus he was needed to finish the last couple hours of her shift.

“Please, Mon-El?” his manager had begged. “I’ll even let you close the bar at midnight instead of 1am.”

And so Mon-El found himself headed back to work.

Tuesday nights were not particularly busy after 9:00pm, and having cleaned most everything earlier in the day, Mon-El found himself fiddling with his phone.

The mix of boredom and exhaustion had clearly affected his brain, because here he was at 10:30 on a Tuesday night texting Kara, “ _You up_?”

 _“Yep :)”_ was her immediate reply.

_I’m sorry I didn’t come over earlier._

She responded with: _It’s okay. We missed you though._

  _I guess things have just been weird lately. I didn’t want to intrude,_ he said.

_Maybe we should talk. Come over when you get out?_

_Of course._

Seeing as the bar was empty, he closed up at 11:15 and headed out.

A dozen missions, two shifts, less than thirty dollars in tips, and three hours of sleep.

Yes, today was definitely “one of those days.”

 

~~~

 

Kara answered the door before he’d even knocked, which definitely meant she’d been waiting for him and using her x-ray vision to see when he arrived.

“Do you want some pizza?” she asked as he took his jacket off. “I saved you a piece.”

“Yeah, actually, that’d be great.”

She warmed a piece for each of them with her heat vision (microwaves are overrated) and carried them over to the couch. He tried to mask his exasperation as he collapsed in the seat next to her, but apparently failed, as she said “Bad day?”

He nodded. “Long day.”

“We don’t have to talk tonight if you’re too tired.”

“I’m a little worried about what I might say in my sleep deprived state.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk then,” she said, causing Mon-El’s eyebrows to shoot up.

She blushed. “No, I mean maybe we should just sleep.”

He maintained his raised eyebrows. “We?” 

“You can sleep out here, if you want,” she said. “But I feel bad. You’re exhausted.”

She stood up, offering her hand to him. He took it, and she led him to her room.

“Look, I have a king size bed. More than enough room. Besides, I don’t feel comfortable with you heading all the way back to the DEO alone.” 

Mon-El wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to make things _less_ awkward, but found himself agreeing to it nonetheless.

She lent him a pair of sweatpants as she changed into shorts and a T-shirt. As he crawled under the covers with her, he still couldn’t believe how his day had gone from actively avoiding eye contact with her this morning to her snuggling up against his chest. He ran a hand through her hair and she sighed contentedly.

  
For sure, it had been one hell of a day.


	10. i'm sorry for your loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Mon-El are NOT together in this, simply because I wrote this a long time ago so it's canon divergent. As always, thank you for all of your wonderful comments and support. 
> 
> WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH

_91) “I’m sorry for your loss.”_

_Or: Kara wears black, and Mon-El is Martha Stewart._

_Chapter Ten_

 

She had picked a pink sweater and white skirt to wear today. It had been three days since the funeral, and Kryptonian custom dictated today would be the day to return to normalcy.

She donned the black dress anyway.

When Kara exited her room, Mon-El was cooking breakfast. Since she’d gotten the news a week ago, he’d been crashing at her place. While her sister and all of her friends had been visiting frequently, Mon-El had been unfalteringly and unflinchingly at her side, helping her with small tasks such as cooking and laundry that had become difficult to complete during her grief. This morning, he appeared to be making some sort of French toast casserole. Mon-El, who worked nights and had recently discovered Pinterest, made a production of breakfast every morning.

(His Mickey Mouse peach cobbler pancakes had been the first thing to make her smile after the funeral.)

“Good morning,” he said. Upon noticing her all black outfit, he asked, “How long is the Kryptonian mourning period, customarily?”

“Three days. I just like this dress,” she said unconvincingly.

Mon-El shrugged his shoulders, scooping some of his latest breakfast creation onto her plate.

“What do we have today?” she asked.

“Cinnamon apple French toast casserole,” he responded proudly.

“Mon-El, you spoil me.”

He smiled, but his grin was laced with concern. Kara chose not to comment on it.

Before they finished breakfast, Mon-El asked, “Are we going to talk about it?”

Kara put her fork down. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”

“Cat Grant is dead,” and Kara nearly choked on her orange juice.

“I know,” she said, pulling her lips tight in anger. “You don’t need to tell me that.”

“But we need to talk about it.”

“No,” she said. “We don’t. I have to go to work.”

“Check your phone.”

_Text from James Olsen: Take the day off. Cleared it with Carr. You need it. Let me know if you need anything._

Kara stared at her phone with contempt before turning her angry gaze to Mon-El.

“I don’t need you to tell me how I should be feeling.”

“I’m not. I’m asking you to tell me how you are feeling.”

She sighed, leaning back into her chair. She had recently added stubbornness to the list of grievances about Daxamites, so she knew there was no way of getting out of this.

Mon-El (quite literally) leapt out of his seat, opened her slow cooker, and poured what appeared to be hot chocolate into a mug. Kara couldn’t help but wonder when he had time for all of this.

She took a sip before speaking, and the hot chocolate was so good she thought briefly that Mon-El was on the wrong career path.

“Cat Grant is dead,” she said.

Mon-El reached towards her was if to take her hand, but seemed to change his mind mid-motion, instead clasping his own hands together. He didn’t speak, letting Kara express the feelings she’d kept bottled up over the week.

“It’s not like I haven’t lost anyone before. I lost all of my friends and family--my whole planet--when Krypton died. You know better than anyone how devastating that is. And then for so many years I thought Jeremiah was gone. But there was nothing I could do about any of that. Cat died in a car crash. If I had been there, maybe I could have stopped it.”

Her voice shook, feeling as though she were about to cry.

“What is the point of being a superhero if I can’t even save the people I care about?”

Tears began to spill from her eyes, and she wrapped her hands around the warm mug.

“She made me who I am. And I don’t just mean as Supergirl. I mean as Kara Danvers. She taught me to be strong, to stand up for myself, to fight for what I believe in. She taught me that as a woman, there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish.”

She paused to wipe away tears.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I love James, but it’s not the same.”

Mon-El laughed softly. “I suppose it’s pretty different.”

Kara sniffled. “I should have been there to save her. You know what I was doing when she died? I was out drinking.”

“Kara,” Mon-El said, taking her hand in his. “Sometimes things happen that we can’t control. Being a superhero doesn’t mean you can save everyone.”

Overwhelmed with emotion, she began to shake, dropping her head into her free hand. Mon-El moved to kneel next to her.

“Kara. I am so sorry for your loss. I know this can’t be easy. But you will survive this. I know it hurts, I know. So today, you can just be sad. Allow yourself to grieve. And once it starts to hurt less, you will come through this a stronger version of both Supergirl and Kara Danvers and you will make Cat proud.”

He stood up, pulling Kara with him. She, without thinking, wrapped her arms around his neck. He immediately responded by wrapping both arms around her waist. Because of the height difference, he effortlessly lifted her a few inches off the ground. He held her for just a moment--and in that moment, she allowed someone else to be strong for her.

Their embrace was interrupted by a knock at the door. Before Kara could remove her glasses and see who it was, Mon-El said, “A day off from CatCo isn’t enough, so we wanted to give you a day off from being Supergirl.”

He opened the door to reveal Alex and Clark. Alex smiled and moved to set the booze she was holding on the counter and the ice cream from her bag to the freezer. Kara tearfully hugged Clark.

“I’m so sorry to hear about Cat,” Clark said.

“Thank you,” Kara responded. “And thank you for being here.”

“I’m in contact with J’onn,” Alex said. “He’ll call us if anything happens and Clark and I will take care of it. But in the meantime, how about we binge watch some _Full House_?”

Kara hugged her sister, and Alex and Mon-El went to setup Netflix, leaving Clark and Kara alone in the kitchen.

“I know this can’t be easy for you,” Clark said. “And I know this probably doesn’t make it easier--but you have some pretty wonderful friends.”

He indicated to where Mon-El was struggling to learn how to sign into Netflix.

Kara smiled softly.

“Yes I do.”

An exclamation of success came from the living room, and Kara and Clark walked over to join Alex and the Daxamite.  
  
Clark was right--nothing about this was easy. But when Kara changed out of her work clothes, the sweats she changed into were her favorite shade of pink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all I literally almost cried while I was writing this but the prompt didn't give me much to work with I'm so sorry. Next chapter is a massive AU that I'm pretty excited about!!


	11. you can have half

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but here it is. After this, I have four more chapters written, all of which I'll post in the next week or so, and then this will be on a temporary hiatus until the summer. Thanks for all of your support!

90) “You can have half.”

_Or: Detectives Matthews and Danvers take on a cold case and share some Chinese._

_Chapter Eleven_

 

Detective Kara Danvers of the National City Police Department rarely went home on time.

This particular night should have been the exception.

The case they’d solved had been particularly difficult, and so as soon as their paperwork was complete (at an impressively early 6:00 pm) the team headed to their favorite bar to destress after their day.

The whole team, except for her partner-Detective Mike “Mon-El” Matthews, that is. Olsen had said Matthews had given the “paperwork to catch up on” excuse. Kara had been slightly concerned with his absence; her partner had never been one to miss out on happy hour.

So when Kara returned to the office to grab her gym bag she’d accidentally left at her desk, she was quite surprised to see Mon-El behind his desk, scribbling in what appeared to be a journal.

He didn’t seem to hear her enter the bullpen, his focus still on whatever he was writing. It wasn’t until she cleared her throat that he looked up, knocking a stack of papers over in surprise. 

“Kara! What are you doing here?”

She held up her gym bag. “Left this here. I was going to hit the gym on my way in tomorrow, work off the calories I just drank.”

He nodded in response, picking up the papers he’d knocked over.

“So what are you working on?” Kara asked.

“Cold case,” he said, focusing his attention back to the papers in front of him.

She tilted her her head to one side in confusion. “We aren’t working on any cold cases.”

“I know,” he said. “I just came across this file last week and there’s something about it...I think I can solve it.”

“Well,” Kara said, putting her gym bag down. “You certainly don’t have to do it alone.”

“You don’t have to stay--besides, Olsen is probably expecting you home soon. 

“Olsen isn’t expecting me anywhere anymore.”

“Kara, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a few weeks, but we didn’t want to make a big deal about it. Avoid the awkwardness, you know?”

She pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “So what do we got?”

“Unsolved homicide. Five years ago, Adam Kendall and his friend Missy Blake found Kendall’ sister Thalia dead in her apartment. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. There was no murder weapon, no motive. They only real evidence was this.”

He pulled up a picture on his computer of military dog tags. Despite the blood smeared on them, the name was still clear: Lucas Judd.

Kara couldn’t help but notice the way the way her partner’s face lit up as he continued to describe the case. He’d seemed a little off lately, she could tell something had been bothering him. Despite the sad story of the case, it was nice to see him passionate about something.

“So who is Lucas Judd?” she asked.

“He was a friend of the victims. Their relationship seemed to be more than anyone would say, given the fact that she was found wearing his tags. He was obviously the first suspect, except he had a pretty airtight alibi.”

Kara raised an eyebrow.

“Deployed overseas.”

“Captain Sawyer was one of the original detectives on the case. She ran down every lead, scrubbed over the scene a dozen times, spoke to every person who could have possibly been involved. She turned up nothing.”

“I can ask her about it, if you want. I’ve been staying at Alex and Maggie’s since the…” she trailed off.

“I was planning on asking her about it tomorrow, you should come with,” he said. “And you know, I have a spare room if you need to crash. It’d probably be better than Sawyer and your sister’s couch.” 

She smiled. “I might take you up on that. It would be nice not to be a third wheel all of the time.”

He laughed, leaning in back in his chair. His laughter was infectious, and she found herself giggling even though nothing was particularly funny. 

His phone rang, interrupting the moment.

“Detective Matthews,” he said, then taking the time to listen.

“Okay perfect, I’ll be down in a second, thank you.”

He moved towards the elevator, telling Kara he’d be back in a minute. She tried not to notice how nice he looked in his rolled up sleeves, suspenders, and dress pants as he walked away.

She spent his momentary absence distracting herself from thinking about her partner by looking over the case details. He was right--there was something that wasn’t right about this case. Sawyer was one of the best detectives the precinct had ever seen. She’d only taken the promotion to captain because she’d suffered a fairly severe knee injury in the field. There had to be more to this case.

Mon-El interrupted her thoughts, sitting back down after placing a bag filled with something delicious smelling in it. He pulled out boxes of Chinese food, and Kara hoped he couldn’t hear her stomach growling.

“I ordered this before you got here. It’s way too much for just me though, you can have half.”

Kara thought about declining to be polite, but her love of Chinese food took over her manners. 

“Yes, please.”

He smiled and handed her some silverware. 

“Mon-El, do you have a record of everyone they interviewed?”

“Yep,” he responded, pulling up a list.

She scanned it quickly. “Did Kendall not have a lot of friends in the area?”      

“Not too many. Her family moved here after she graduated from high school, and she went to college out of state. Sawyer and Henshaw interviewed everyone she worked at her summer job with and all of her family.”

“What about Judd?”  she asked.

“He was interviewed via Facetime and then again in person when he came back from overseas.”

“Did he ever disclose the nature of this relationship with Thalia?”

“Not in the records that I could find.”

Kara furrowed her eyebrows, continuing to read the statements of all interviewed. 

Over the next few hours, the pair poured over every detail of the case--reexamining all evidence, reading witness statements and running down where everyone who could have potentially been involved was now.

Sometime after midnight, Kara had a realization.

“Missy Blake. She’s engaged to Kendall’s brother Adam now. They had just started dating when Thalia was murdered. She worked at the same restaurant as Thalia did when she was home from college.”

Mon-El seemed to read her mind, his eyes growing wide. “I bet she knows more details about what Thalia’s personal life was like when she died. She might not realize it was relevant or important. We have to talk to her.”

“First,” she said. “We have to get some sleep.”

“Right,” he responded, getting up to get his stuff together. “Did you want to crash at my place tonight?”

She felt her face turning pink.

“Yeah, as long as you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. We can even drive together, if you want.”

“Sure!” she said, immediately wondering why she was agreeing to this. She sent her sister a quick text to let her know she was staying at a friend (mostly to let her know her and Maggie had the apartment to themselves for what remained of the night), and followed her partner to his car.

Kara had never been to Mon-El’s apartment. While the detectives in their squad were close, they all valued privacy and having a life away from the department. Having space to be removed from the difficult and emotionally draining work they did was sometimes the only way to stay sane.

As they approached the door, Kara heard faint barking.

“Do you have a dog?” she asked, unable to hide her excitement.

“Her name is Scout. I feel bad that I’m gone a lot, but she does really good home alone and I pay my landlord’s kid to play with her for a few hours after school.”

He unlocked the door, revealing the fluffiest white dog she had ever seen.

“Hey, girl!” Mon-El said, kneeling down to greet the dog. The puppy excitedly licked his face. “Scout, this is Kara.”

Kara kneeled down next to Mon-El, allowing Scout to sniff her hand. The puppy must have decided she was trustworthy, because she started licking Kara’s extended hands. Kara felt a grin spreading across her face as she pet the dog.

Mon-El stood up, and left Kara alone for a minute to go get changed. She took the opportunity to observe his apartment. It was fairly small, and extremely clean. His living room had one loveseat facing a decent sized TV, connecting to a kitchen with a pub style table for two. She was surprised by the lack of decor. As far as she knew, he’d lived in the same apartment since moving to National City, but he seemed to have put no effort into personalizing his place.

He reentered the living room, interrupting her thoughts. 

Kara had seen Mon-El dressed up in various suits before, and she had seen him in his street clothes plenty of times. This was different. He wore a tight black T-shirt and grey sweatpants. He’d switched his contacts out for glasses and when he stretched his arms above his head she could see the skin of his stomach and--

 _Stop,_ she told herself, _this is your partner_.

“The spare room is that way,” he said, pointing to the hallway behind him. “On the left hand side. That bathroom is next to it. I know we should get some rest but I want to make a list of people to re-interview tomorrow.”

“I’ll help you,” she said, getting up to go get changed.

Her emergency overnight bag contained only shorts and a tank top to sleep in. Mon-El’s eyes shot up when he saw her, and she immediately decided to repack her bag as soon as all of her clothes were out of storage. 

“Do you want a sweatshirt?” he asked. “It’s kind of chilly for a tank top.”

She nodded, and he tossed her one of his hoodies. In her absence, he’d gotten out all of his notes on the case, spreading them across the floor. The dog sat happily on his right. Kara sat cross-legged on his other side, looking at the list of people who had been interviewed. 

Missy Blake, Adam Kendall, Lucas Judd, and several other key players in the case still had addresses in National City. At the office, Kara had compiled a list of their workplaces, and started to decide which order in which to speak with them. 

Mon-El appeared to be rereading (for perhaps the dozenth time) statements taken during the original case.

“Earlier,” he said, “You asked if Thalia had any friends in the area. That’s what’s strange about this case. No one interviewed knew how she knew Judd or the nature of their relationship. They must have known some of the same people, had mutual friends. Why were none of those people ever interviewed?” 

Kara nodded. “Tomorrow when we talk to them, we’ll find out who those people may have been and see if they remember anything. But it’s almost 3:00am, we should both probably get some sleep.”

He agreed, and after picking up the case files, he walked her to the spare room. 

“‘Night, Danvers. See you in a few hours.”

She smiled and headed to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

_This should feel weird._

The thought passed through Kara’s mind more than once during the course of the morning, and yet not once did any of this feel strange. 

Mon-El had woken up before her, and was showered and mostly dressed by the time she was up. She quickly got ready, showering and throwing her hair into a braid. Both of them had gotten up early enough for breakfast, and so Kara found herself sitting at his kitchen table as he cooked eggs, laughing as Scout eagerly waited for some bacon to fall to the ground.

Kara wasn’t one for sleepovers. It had taken a long time for things to feel like home after moving in with James. She had always been most comfortable at her own place.

But this felt normal. Eating breakfast with her partner while laughing at how hard the dog was begging for food--not one part of this felt out of place or unusual. She was comfortable, and the feeling would have scared her if it wasn’t so nice.

And so she spent the rest of the half hour before work chatting with Mon-El, trading ridiculous work stories and little details about their lives. She felt a little twinge of sadness when he pointed out if they wanted to stop for coffee they should probably leave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“God bless you for this latte, Kara, you are a lifesaver,” Lena said as Kara handed her the cup. “I had a late night last night and Olsen is in some kind of mood today.”

She dropped her voice to continue. “I thought he was doing better, but apparently he’s still pretty beat up about the breakup.”

Kara sighed. Detective Lena Luthor was James’ partner, and the only person (besides Alex, Maggie, and now Mon-El) to know about the breakup. 

“Maybe it’s something else.” 

“I doubt it,” Lena said. “Better not let him know you spent the night with Matthews.”

“Um-uh..not like that. Just crashed in his spare room for the night. We were working on a case. How’d you know, anyway?”

“That’s your emergency bag outfit, your car was here when I got here and you weren’t, and you showed up together with coffee for everyone. I’m a detective, Kara, give me some credit. And we aren’t working on a case, so you should probably come up with a better lie.”

“It’s a cold case he found, we think we might have a new lead. We were going to work on it today some more, actually.” She paused, and then, “Did you know Matthews has a dog?”

“Yes, he has white fur on all of his jackets and also she’s the background on his computer. Seriously, Kara, your lack of deduction skills are concerning considering you’re a police officer.”

Before Kara could respond, Mon-El, James, and Sergeant J’onzz entered the bullpen together. James picked up the coffee on his desk, giving Kara a smile and nod in appreciation. Mon-El was bouncing excitedly and smiling in Kara’s direction, causing Lena to not so subtly jab her elbow into Kara’s ribs.

“Luthor and Olsen, there was a homicide downtown I need you to go to. Lane, take Teschmacher and go with them.” J’onzz directed.

“What about Matthews and Danvers?” James asked.

“Captain Sawyer has given them a special assignment. Now get to work, I will see you all back here later.”

First on their list of interviews for the Kendall case was Captain Sawyer, so the pair headed up to her office.

Kara’s relationship with Maggie had always been a little different. Maggie had met Alex when the latter worked as the medical examiner, and hit it off (nearly) instantly. Alex eventually moved to a better job at the hospital, in part so that her relationship with Maggie wouldn’t be complicated by work. But this still left Kara with a woman who she considered a good friend (and most likely her future sister in law), as her boss. Most of the time it was fine, but it still made her nervous in situations such as this.

“You were the lead detective on the Kendall case, right?” Mon-El asked the captain.

“I was actually still a junior detective. It was my last case with Henshaw as my partner. But I did most of the investigation, yes.”

He nodded, and moved onto the next question. “Was there anything about this case that stuck out to you? Especially something that wouldn’t have been in the files?”

Maggie’s expression turned somber as she spoke. “There was no motive. Most of Thalia’s personal life was at college, a thousand miles away. All she did in the summer was work at that restaurant and spend time with family. She had no enemies, no gang ties, no drug use--nothing. She didn’t even have close relationships with anyone except her family.”

“What about Corporal Judd?”

“The Marine? We could never prove anything beyond they knew each other. He said he used to come into the place she worked once in awhile and they struck up a friendship. Because he was her only friend in town, he gave her a set of his dog tags while he was gone. Honestly, Matthews, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to solve this one.”

“We have some ideas. Thank you for your help, Captain Sawyer. We’ll let you know how it goes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Missy Blake now worked as an assistant professor at the National City Community College. Both Mon-El and Kara agreed that it was best to not call beforehand, just in case Blake was more involved than they thought.

They found her office very quickly. The door was propped open, but they knocked anyway.

“Come in!” she said, not looking up from her computer screen.

“Miss Blake, my name is Detective Matthews, and this is Detective Danvers with the National City Police Department.”

The word detective must have caught her attention because she turned around very quickly, eyes wide open.

“Is everything okay?” she said immediately.  

“Yes, yes,” Kara assured her. “We’re here about an old case.” 

“Thalia?” she asked, her expression growing sad.

“Yes,” Mon-El answered. “We’ve read your original statement, but we have a couple of questions.” He motioned to Kara.

“We need to know the nature of Thalia’s relationship with the Marine Lucas Judd. We’re going to talk to him later, but we thought you might be able to tell us how she felt about him.”

A sad smile crossed over Missy’s face. 

“Thalia had a hard time when she was home on break. All of her friends were either in the town she grew up in, or at her college-both thousands of miles away. Lucas came into the restaurant we worked at a lot with his friends. It was a local diner, one of those 24/7 places. Anyway, Judd and his friends hung around a lot late at night with Thalia was serving. At first they were just friends, but then his relationship ended and things started between them. She was going back to college and he was being deployed--they didn’t want it to be anything serious. But I think it was anyway. She didn’t talk about it much, especially at work. The owner’s daughter was Judd’s ex-girlfriend, Abby Wells.” 

“Are you sure no one else knew about them?” Kara asked.

“I don’t think anyone knew. But there’s definitely a possibility someone else found out. Do you think she was murdered because of it?”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Mon-El responded. “What is the name of Judd’s ex-girlfriend?”

“Abby Wells. She’s a wedding coordinator now at the Peak Ridge Hotel and Spa. I haven’t talked to her in years, but her name came up when Adam and I were looking into wedding venues.” 

She paused. “I really hope you find her killer. She was a sweet girl, she deserves justice. I’m sorry I never gave the full story before. We were all just kids and we were scared and didn’t know what to do, you know?”

“Thank you for your time,” Mon-El said, shaking her hand. “We’ll let you know what we find.” 

As they exited, Mon-El spoke the exact words Kara was thinking: “We need to speak to Abby Wells.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ms. Wells agreed to stop by the precinct the following day, giving Kara and Mon-El the rest of the day to finish up their other interviews. While interviewing victims friends and families was an unfortunate reality of her job, today was different. These people had started to move on with their lives. While they were obviously still affected by the death of their loved one, all had similar changes in demeanor after they were asked to go over the details of Thalia’s death. Kara reminded herself that bringing her killer to justice would help heal some of the pain they were feeling.

The interviews lasted all day, and by the end, Kara was emotionally drained.

“Do you to get a drink tonight?” James asked her once she was back in the bullpen. She froze, and her facial expression must have been alarmed because he backtracked, saying, “I mean all of us. We’ve all had long days.”

She just wanted to get home, but looked at Mon-El first. He drove after all, and happy hour was one of his favorites. But his facial expression was clear: he felt the same as her.

“Maybe another time,” she said. “I think I need a night in tonight.”

She gave James a half smile, and headed toward the door with Mon-El.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“I think we should talk about Olsen,” Mon-El said, planting himself next to Kara on the couch.

She groaned. “I think we should not.” 

“Why'd you break up?” he asked.

“Jeez, Mon-El, you can't just ask people things like that so bluntly. Sometimes I feel like you were raised on another planet.”

He didn't respond, instead waiting for her to answer his rude question.

“There was no spark,” she said, relenting. “It's not really an interesting story. I didn't meet someone else, we didn't have a huge fight. It just wasn't there anymore, for either of us. Sometimes I think I was more in love with the idea of him than who he actually is. I do miss him though. He was one of my best friends. And I've spent nearly every night since I moved out playing third wheel to the happiest couple of all time.” 

“You can stay with me as long as you need to,” he said.

She smiled at him, and he moved closer, placing a hand on her knee. 

“Kara. You can tell me the truth, you know.” 

“Maybe we should drink instead of talking about this,” she replied.

“As you wish,” he said, patting her knee and getting up to grab them something to drink.

After he sat back down, he turned the TV on, changing it to a dumb romantic comedy.

“Seriously?” she said.

“Thought it might cheer you up,” he responded sheepishly.

“You know what would cheer me up?” she paused to take a swig of her drink, and he raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I should do something stupid. With James everything was so adult and mature all the time. The most exciting thing we ever did was have his friends over on Sundays for football. I felt like I was stuck on this path. We started dating, and the we moved in together and I felt like my whole life was planned out. Get married, have kids, be a PTA mom. It’s not like I don’t want those things, I’m just not ready for it yet. I've played by the rules my whole life. After losing my family, I’ve spent my whole life surviving, and not really living.”

Mon-El moved to put his arm around her, and she found herself resting her head on his shoulder.

“You sound like a romantic heroine, you know that, right?”

She tilted her head back as she laughed, and he looked down on her, his eyes locking on hers.

She felt her heart start to race, and she tried (unsuccessfully) to convince herself that it was because of the whiskey she was drinking.

“Does that make you the hero?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Does it?”

He was close, impossibly close with his arm around her and his face inches from her and her hand moved to his jaw of her own volition and--

This was a bad idea. This was the definition of a stupid idea. Of course, Lena would think it was great and Winn hilarious (“Kara Danvers, making her was through the NCPD!”) but J’onzz would disapprove (“Rule number 12, Danvers!”) and Alex would probably injure herself from the amount of eye rolling she would do.

_This was a stupid idea._

Isn’t that what she wanted? Mon-El was outgoing, had never paid for a drink in his life, and incredibly attractive. These past few days she’d seen a new side of him--not just the cop who excelled at getting information from people, not just the frat boy who was always the life of the party. The dedication to the cold case, the puppy, the letting her crash at his place--he’d let her into his life in a way she would have never expected. 

_This was a stupid idea._

She brought her lips against his anyway. She moved her hands along his jaw, and up to his hair.

He kissed her back with no hesitation. He pulled her onto his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He stopped for a moment, pulling away.

“Kara,” he said breathlessly. “Are you sure?”

She kissed him in response.

He stood up, picking her up with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he carried her to his room, his lips never leaving hers.

He shut the door behind them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You had sex last night!” Lena whispered loudly.

“Shhhh!” Kara said, pulling her best friend into an empty interrogation room.

“You seemed more relaxed, you looked exhausted, and you’re weirdly giddy. 

Kara buried her head in her hands.

“And you have a hickey on your neck.”

Kara squeaked.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you cover it up. Come to the bathroom with me.”

The pair of detectives walked to the bathroom, speaking in hushed tones.

“So who was it?” Lena asked, even though Kara knew she knew the answer. 

“Last night I crashed at Mon-El’s again, and we were on the couch talking about James, and-”

She stopped abruptly. _James._

“Lena, oh my god, what if James finds out?”

“James will be fine,” Lena said, applying makeup to Kara’s neck. Her face changed from a sly smile to a serious expression. “But Kara, are you going to be okay? It’s been a long time since you’ve been with anybody but James.”

Kara sighed. “It didn’t feel wrong. That’s the thing. I thought after James it would be weird to be with someone. It felt totally normal and wonderful and perfect and in the morning it wasn’t awkward.” 

Lena finished the makeup application and then hugged her best friend. “I’m happy for you, Kara.”

And with that, both detectives headed back to the bullpen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Detectives Matthews and Danvers?” a young agent approached the bullpen.

“Ms. Wells is in the conference room.”

“Thank you,” Kara said, following Mon-El to the stairs of the conference room. 

Abby Wells was not what Kara was expecting. The pictures of her she’d seen were years old, and the woman in front of her was nothing like the girl from the old candids. 

She had strawberry blonde hair that hung pin straight to her shoulders. Her makeup was flawless--from her winged eyeliner to perfectly applied pink lipstick.

“Ms. Wells, I’m Detective Matthews, and this is my partner Detective Danvers.”

This time Kara let her partner do the talking. Mon-El had always excelled in interrogations, using one of the least aggressive techniques the force had ever seen. He was easy to talk to, easy to be around. If Wells knew anything, they were about to find it out. 

“Nice to meet you, Detectives. Can I ask what this is about?” 

“Thalia Kendall.”

Wells’ face paled slightly, though her expression stayed neutral.

“You knew her.”

“I did. We worked together.”

“You were more than just coworkers.”

Wells looked toward the table. 

“She was friends with my boyfriend at the time.”

“What was the nature of their relationship?” Mon-El asked.

“She volunteered at an organization that assisted servicemembers and veterans. He came in to take some computer classes, and they became friends through there. And he came  into the restaurant a lot with his friends.”

“And then he broke up with you?” he asked.

“No,” she said, and her eyes began to fill with tears. “He was with her. While we were still together. He ended things with me right after. He told me it wasn’t about me, that he had fallen out of love with me and was going to end things but he was scared. He apologized over and over. I had to forgive him. I didn’t want him to be overseas, distracted and upset about hurting me.”

“So you went to talk to her instead.”

Even after all of this time working side by side with him, Kara was endlessly impressed with his skill in interrogation. The way he got people to talk to him, to tell him details that could ruin their lives--and his ability to figure out the holes in their stories--was like magic.

Wells was now openly crying, pulling Kara out of her thoughts.

“I tried to leave it alone. For weeks, I said nothing. Pretending I was okay with everything. But you have to understand how much I loved him, he was my whole life. So after he left I went to confront her. She knew that he’d told me, and she cried when I talked to her. She apologized, just like him. And I knew she was sincere. But I had a drinking problem then, and I was angry. I don’t know, it just happened.”

She stopped, wiping her tears away. “I think I should probably call a lawyer.

Mon-El stood up. “We’ll give you some time.” A uniformed officer came to watch her, and the detectives left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I wanted to say thank you,” Maggie said, shutting the door to her office. “You two solved a case that has haunted me for years.”

Both Kara and Mon-El smiled at her.

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” Mon-El said cheekily. 

“There’s something about this case you should know. Abby Wells’ mother was NCPD. She was close with Henshaw, and she suspected her daughter’s involvement with the case. She bribed Henshaw to mess with my investigation so that Wells’ name never even came up. If it wasn’t for you two, we never would have caught her.” 

After spending the rest of the day finishing up paperwork, Mon-El and Kara were the last two in the office. They hadn’t talked about the night before, and she wasn’t sure if she should bring it up.

“Kara?” he asked as he packed up his stuff. “Do you want to get dinner with me tonight?”  
  
A grin spread across her face. “I’d love to.”


	12. take my jacket, it's cold outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Kara find out about James, but before her and Mon-El start dating. Thank you for all your support as always!! And feel free to come hang out with me on Tumblr at hermesmultivitamins

90) “Take my jacket. It’s cold outside.”

_Or: Mon-El takes Kara stargazing._

_Chapter Twelve_

 

There was a spot on the coast, not terribly far from National City but far enough so that there was no light pollution, where the stars were as clear and visible as Kara had ever see them on Earth.

Mon-El had discovered it after (finally) getting a motorcycle, and after a particularly stressful day, had decided to take Kara to it. She had wanted to fly, but he insisted on taking the bike. _“It's relaxing_ ,” he had explained.

He had struck up a friendship with the park ranger, who allowed him to sneak in after hours as long as he didn’t cause any trouble. It was a small stretch of beach along a lakeshore, where the trees had been cleared out. He brought a blanket, placing it on the sand. He laid down on the blanket, and Kara followed. She gasped at the sight above her.

The night was clear--not a single cloud obstructed their view. Thousands of stars shone above them, twinkling against the dark sky. 

“Tell me about your day,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“You seemed stressed at the bar. Tell me about your day.”

She sighed, continuing to stare at the night sky.

“I still can’t look James in the eye. With Winn gone, James was my best friend at work, really. Now the highlight of my day is when I get lunch with you or Lena. Today, Lena had to cancel, and Snapper was in a terrible mood, and I feel like it’s been too long since I’ve had a good story--”

She exhaled again.

“I’m venting, I’m sorry.” 

“No,” he said. “That’s okay. That’s what friends are for.”

He paused before pointing to a particularly bright object in the sky: “Look, it’s Venus.”

She smiled, and suddenly the stars weren’t the brightest thing in Mon-El’s field of view. 

For awhile, they did not speak. The sky continued to be clear; stars, planets, and pieces of the Milky Way shown bright, and Mon-El marveled at how beautiful the view of the cosmos was from Earth. He was acutely aware of her presence next to him. Her gaze was fixed on the night sky. One arm was behind her head, the other brushed against his. Without looking at Mon-El, she reached her hand toward his, intertwining their fingers. His heartbeat sped up and he mentally cursed himself for how pathetic he’d become since developing feelings for her. 

Minutes passes with her hand in his, and he felt her shiver against him. Immediately, he sat up, pulling off his jacket. 

“Take my jacket, it’s cold outside.”

She smiled as she put it on, and when they laid back down she rested her head on his chest, snuggling against him.

“I don’t want you to be cold,” she explained.

The fallacies in her logic were apparent, but he decided against pointing them out, instead asking her to show him her favorite Earth constellations. 

Kara’s face lit up--and she pointed out patterns in the sky. She explained the stories behind them, teaching him about Ancient Greek mythology and cultures. Mon-El had learned a decent amount about Earth culture, but little about it’s history. Kara spun tales of gods and heroes and monsters. The stories were fascinating, but he noticed they all ended tragically. 

“Is that the belief on Earth? That heroes don’t get happy endings?” he asked.

“Perseus does,” Kara answered. “Winn told me you got a library card. Check out Edith Hamilton's _Mythology_. It has all of the stories--including Perseus and Andromeda."

She went back to showing him the constellations. She shivered occasionally despite the jacket, and he pulled her closer, surprised at how comfortable she seemed to be with him. The hours passed like minutes, and in what felt like no time at all, it had become quite late.

“We should probably head back soon,” Mon-El said softly. 

“But this view is incredible,” she said. “Can we stay a few more minutes?”

“As you wish, Supergirl.”


	13. sorry I'm late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in a universe where it takes Kara more than .2 seconds to forgive Mon-El for lying to her, I wrote this before that happened on the show and I assumed they'd be broken up for awhile so it's a little canon divergent. Also, to be completely honest I don't love this chapter so sorry if it's a little off but I just wish there were more scenes like this on the show. Next chapter should be up in a day or two. As always, thank you for your support!!

_89) “Sorry I’m late.”_  

 _Or: The one where Mon-El is not alone._  

_Chapter Thirteen_

 

As the Prince of Daxam, Mon-El was hardly alone. He was surrounded by nannies, tutors, guards, and the like. He was so frequently accompanied by someone that he begun to treasure the moments he had to himself.

Earth was a different story. He spent most of his time at the DEO or the bar, always working or drinking alone. All of his friends and family from home were gone, and the pain of losing them made him hesitant to get close to anyone. But Kara Danvers was the one who had found him, and she was nothing if not persistent in him making friends. And so slowly, Mon-El became less and less alone.

Every Wednesday, Kara spent her lunch break with Mon-El. This particular Monday, she had gotten pulled into something and told Mon-El to wait for her, she’d be there in a few minutes. And so he stood awkwardly outside the elevator at CatCO, hoping desperately he didn’t run into anyone he knew.

The universe was not on his side today. He’d barely been waiting two minutes before James Olsen appeared, stopping suddenly when he caught sight of the Daxamite. James had never been a fan of Mon-El, and Mon-El was acutely aware of this. He offered an awkward smile and hand wave despite this, and was extremely surprised when James walked over to him.

“Mon-El, how are you?” he greeted warmly.

“Good, thanks. And you?”

“Good, good. You waiting for Kara?”

“Yep,” Mon-El responded, unsure of how to act. 

“Listen, I want to ask you something. Winn and I scored some free tickets to NCU’s game this Saturday, and we were wondering if you wanted to come with us. Kara can teach you a lot about Earth, but she’s pretty clueless about sports.”

Mon-El’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Yeah, I’d love to! What sport is it?”

“College basketball,” James said, and proceeded to explain more about NCU’s team and how important this game was. 

They chatted for a few minutes, and Mon-El realized that James was genuinely excited to teach him about this so called basketball. He began to smile in earnest, which only widened as Kara approached.

“Hi, Mon-El. Oh hey, James!” she said, clearly surprised to see them talking.

“It was good talking to you,” James said to Mon-El. “I’ll see you Saturday, then.” He smiled and waved at Kara.

“What was that all about?” she asked Mon-El as they walked to lunch.  
  
“I think I’m making friends,” he said. “I’m very excited to not have to spend this Saturday night alone."

 She smiled and linked her arm around his. Yep, it was really nice not to be alone.

~~~ 

Despite what J’onn made it seem like, the world was not always under attack by a crazy alien force. Thus, there was occasionally some down time at the DEO.

J’onn had instructed Winn to enter new information Mon-El had about various worlds into the database,  but Winn had another idea. Using an empty conference room, Winn pulled up what he called “the most epic movie extravaganza in all of human history.”

According to the titles, it was called “ _Star Wars.”_  

Mon-El learned quickly not to point out the numerous inaccuracies, and found himself addicted to the the strange view of the universe the films offered. It took a few days, but Winn and Mon-El managed to finish the entire series.

When Mon-El expressed his disappointed that there were no more movies to watch, Winn’s eyes lit up.

“There is another one coming out this year, we can go see it opening night if you want.” Winn looked nervous, as if he thought Mon-El would say no.

“I’ve never been to the movies before,” Mon-El responded. “Sounds fun!”

He gave Winn a high five and moved to leave the room.

“If you don’t have anything to do, there’s another series I think you'd like. This one has Harrison Ford in it as well,” Winn said.

“What’s it called?”

“Indiana Jones.”

Mon-El was intrigued, and sat back down. 

“Let’s do this.”

~~~~~

Mon-El was acutely aware of the fact he hadn’t seen Kara in nearly a week. Maggie must have been aware of it too, because she shot Mon-El a sympathetic smile from her spot at the bar. He quickly whipped up one her favorite drinks and brought it over to her.

“Missing Kara?” she asked in lieu of a greeting.

He nodded.

“Her and James got back from Metropolis yesterday but I haven’t talked to her since, and I didn’t want to bother her while she was gone.”

Maggie nodded in understanding. “Are you going over to her place tonight for game night? And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, I know you were in that group text from before they left.”

He focused on the glass he was cleaning, pointedly not making eye contact with Maggie.

“Look, Mon-El, I know she’s mad at you for not telling her about being the prince of Daxam. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to see you. She was furious at James for not telling her about being Guardian, and now they’re fine. It just takes time.”

“James lied about being a hero, I didn’t tell her that I was the playboy prince who stood for everything she hated.”

“Mon-El, I’m no relationship expert.” 

“Oh please,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You and Alex are perfect.” 

“No,” she said gently. “We’re not. It takes effort to make things work. And I know things between you and Kara have never been labeled but you should go tonight. She cares about you.” 

Mon-El looked up, finally meeting Maggie’s eyes. He gave her a grateful smile. She finished her drinking, and fished some money out of her pocket, placing it on the counter.

“I’m going to head over now. Should I tell her to expect you?”

“Yes,” he said. “And Maggie?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.” 

“Anytime,” she said, and exited the bar.

~~~~~~~~ 

Of course, as soon as Maggie left, a bachelorette party stumbled in and Mon-El was stuck at the bar cleaning up after them until over an hour after the bar closed. 

After he locked up, he ran as fast as he could to Kara’s apartment, making it there in minutes.

He knocked on the door somewhat apprehensively, running his free hand through his hair.

Kara opened the door.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

“Hey.”

“Sorry I’m late.” 

“It’s okay,” she said, still standing in the doorway. “Maggie said a party was coming into the bar as she was leaving. I’m glad you came over. We all missed you.”

And then, quietly: “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

She stepped away from the door, and motioned for him to come inside. Alex, Maggie, Winn, and James all greeted him enthusiastically. They had finished with their game, but had just turned on reruns of Mon-El’s favorite Earth TV show: _Friends_.

He followed Kara to the couch. She settled against him, and Mon-El met Maggie’s eyes as she grinned at him, her expression a mix of “I told you so” and “I’m happy for you.”

This was a different type of not being alone. He was going to sports games and movies, chatting with friends at work, and spending time with the most important person in his life. And although he’d spent years of his life surrounded by people, he realized for the first time in his life, he was genuinely not alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps: come hang out with me on Tumblr at hermesmultivitamins, juliakaze made some really cool edits for this story and I reblogged them!!
> 
> pps: does anyone else want Maggie and mon el to be best friends or is that just me??


	14. can i have this dance?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Mon-El attend a wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Challenged myself with this one to write with minimal dialogue. It's so fluffy it made me nauseous. Thank you, as always, for your support!!

_88) “Can I have this dance?”_

_Or: Kara and Mon-El attend a wedding._

_Chapter Fourteen_

 

The whole day had been a whirlwind. It started at 8:00am, when Kara had woken him up enthusiastically shouting that it was wedding time. First was pre-wedding breakfast with Alex’s side of the family, followed by sitting in the salon for hours reading old magazines while Alex and her maid of honor got ready.

(Which, considering how stunning Kara looked in her pale purple dress and braided updo, Mon-El found to be totally worth it.)

Then, he accompanied them for pictures, and before they knew it, it was time for the ceremony. It was outdoors, in a garden filled with some of the most beautiful flowers Mon-El had ever seen.

He sat with James and Winn and watched as Alex and Maggie committed their lives to one another, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t tear up a little. His eyes continually drifted from the glowing brides to Kara at their side, and now he understood what she loved so much about weddings.

The reception was held in a banquet hall next to the gardens. Maybe it was the mix of people there-DEO agents, cops, aliens, etcetera, maybe it was music, maybe it was the booze, but whatever it was, the wedding of Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer was the best party he’d ever attended. Kara kicked off her heels and Mon-El his suit jacket and they drank and danced and laughed and joked with J’onn and M’gann about how high the bar was set for their upcoming nuptials.

After one of the year’s most popular dance songs faded, the DJ announced it was time for a slow song. Alex and Maggie started the dance, set to one of Earth’s most beloved love songs. After a minute or so, the DJ called all the other couples onto the dance floor. Mon-El turned to Kara, dramatically offering his hand.

“Kara Zor-El, can I have this dance?”

She laughed at his antics and took his hand. He pulled her close, and as the music played he thought about how he had gotten to this place with her. 

He thought about their first real kiss in her living room, their fight when he told her he was the prince of Daxam. He remembered how she was furious with him when he risked his life to save her and the argument escalated back at her apartment and how she'd kissed him and how they'd spent nearly every night together since. The first time she called him her boyfriend and the first time he met Clark. The first time he'd told her he loved her.

And now, through it all, they were here.

They swayed gently to the music, and he pulled back slightly so he could look at her. 

“Kara,” he said. “I want this someday.”

He half expected her to stop, to get scared and say this was too much, too fast. 

Instead, she surprised him with: “I want this, too.”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her gently. 

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come hang out with me on Tumblr at hermesmultivitamins


	15. i made your favorite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I've recently noticed there are crazy spaces in every chapter so eventually I'm gonna go fix them!! I'm having a lot of fun with AUs, so expect that for a few chapters. As always, your support means the world to me!!

_87) I made your favorite._

_Or: Single mom extraordinaire Kara Danvers loves chocolate chip muffins._

_Chapter Fifteen_

 

Kara Danvers did not have a lot of free time. By daytime, she was a reporter for CatCo Worldwide Media. At night, she was a single mom to the most beautiful little girl in the whole world, Lexa Danvers. 

(Alex called Kara a superhero for having such a successful career and being a great mom. Kara insisted she was just like everyone else.)

Lexa was starting first grade in a few week and the school had invited parents and kids to come in and meet the teachers for the upcoming year. Snapper Carr, while hard on her at work, was not heartless, and gave her the morning off to meet Lexa’s new teacher.

Kara pulled her daughter’s hair into a braid, and helped her pick out a cute blue dress and sandals to wear. As Lexa pointed out, she would also be meeting many of her new classmates, and thus wanted to look nice. Kara had work after, but also wanted to make a good impression with the other parents. She was a young, single mother, and people had a tendency to judge her without really knowing. She wore a fitted red skirt and a white button up shirt with black polka dots.

“Mommy, you look like Minnie Mouse,” Lexa giggled.

Kara glanced over her outfit and laughed as she realized her daughter was right. But she didn’t have time to change though, so she grabbed Lexa’s hand and ushered her out the door, resigning herself to spend the day looking like a Disney character. 

The school was a ten minute drive from Kara’s apartment, all of which Lexa spent singing along to the _Little Mermaid_ soundtrack. The younger Danvers was bouncing excitedly in her seat. 

“You ready to meet your teacher?” Kara asked as they headed into the school. 

“Yes!”

The PTA volunteer at the door directed them to room 104 in the first grade hallway. Both Kara and Lexa inhaled sharply at the sight of the classroom. It wasn’t immediately obvious who the teacher was in the room full of people, but based on the way it was decorated, she would have guessed she was in her mid to late twenties, extremely into arts and crafts, probably that girl you knew in high school who had known her whole life that she wanted to be a teacher. 

Kara let out a sigh of relief. Vene though she hadn’t met Lexa’s new teacher, the classroom gave the impression it was someone who really cared. The walls were filled with colorful pictures and posters. The desks were arranged in groups of four, each decorated with art supplies, plants, and-- 

_Woof!_

Puppies?

Lexa immediately ran towards the source of the noise, and Kara followed. A golden retriever puppy laid on the ground, surrounded by kids. Lexa eagerly sat on the ground to pet it, and Kara reminded her to ask first. Lexa turned to the man holding the leash, drawing Kara’s attention to him.

He was unbelievably handsome. Never an expert at a poker face, Kara felt her jaw drop momentarily. He was about her age, with brown hair and green eyes. He was tall, and had a smile that made her heart flutter. He was dressed very casually: jeans and a button down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. When Lexa tapped at his hand to get his attention, he kneeled down to speak to her.

“Excuse me,” she asked. “Can I please pet the puppy?” 

“Of course you can! What’s your name?” he responded.

“I’m Lexa Danvers! You’re my teacher.”

He held out his free hand and shook hers. “Nice to meet you Lexa Danvers. My name is Mr. Matthews, and this-” he indicated to the puppy, “is Scout.”

Lexa grinned and moved to pet the dogs, chattering excitedly with her new classmates. Mr. Matthews stood up and turned to face Kara. He held out his hand to her.

“And you must be Mrs. Danvers?” 

“Miss,” she corrected. “But you can call me Kara.” His hand was still wrapped around his, and she cursed her fair skin as she felt a blush creep up her face. 

“So why the puppy?” she asked, dropping her hand back to her side.

He cocked his head to one side. “Did you not get the consent letter? I thought we sent one to all of the parents.”

Kara had a vague memory of signing something she had to send back to the school.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I work a lot and sometimes I lose track of things.”

“Don’t worry about it!” he responded. “We’re introducing a program with this class. Scout is a therapy dog in training. I’m working in conjunction with the school social worker to have her in a few days a week and seeing how it benefits the kids. I can get you another copy of the letter we sent home if you want to read the whole thing?” 

“Sure. That actually sounds like a wonderful idea. It’s just me and Lexa at home, so we don’t have time for a dog. I’m glad she’ll get to be around one.” She smiled affectionately at how happy her daughter looked around the puppy. Suddenly, she had an idea.

“Mr. Matthews, I’m a reporter.”

“Please, call me Mon-El.”

“Okay, Mon-El. I work for CatCo magazine and lately we’ve been looking for a feel good story. Is there any way I’d be able to do a piece about the dog and the kids?”

He smiled, and her heart fluttered again.

“Well, I’d have to get it approved by the school and the parents, but I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Great!” she said. “Here’s my card. If it works out, give me a call.”

He flashed her another winning grin, and shook her hand again.

Kara went over to Lexa. “Come on, sweetie, Aunt Alex and Aunt Maggie are waiting for us.”

“Okay!” the girl happily replied. “Bye, Scout! Bye, Mr. Matthews!”

“Nice to meet you both,” the teacher responded, and the Danvers exited the room. 

~~~ 

It took two weeks to get approval from the school and parents for Kara to be able to write her story. Carr had commended her on finding something to be a “spot of sunshine in the eternal thunderstorm that is the news.” 

Kara decided that she wanted to start with background on the program and it’s goals before observing the class. So while Lexa was at dance class, Kara met Mon-El for coffee at the cafe next to the studio.

She knew this wasn’t a date. This was an interview. This was work.

(She still wore her best jeans and sweater.)

He was already there when she arrived, looking gorgeous as ever in jeans, glasses, and a flannel shirt. She quickly ordered her drink (pumpkin chai with extra cinnamon) and muffin (chocolate chip, her absolute favorite) and sat down across from him.

This was, in all her years as a journalist, her favorite interview. His eyes lit up as he described the ways he’d seen regular animal interaction impact children.

“It leads to decreased aggression, more empathy, a better respect for life...the benefits are endless!”

Although the goals of the program wasn’t what her whole article was about, she had enough material by the end to write a short novel. 

Lexa’s dance class was fairly long, and eventually the conversation between them drifted away from the school. He told her about why he became a teacher (“the best way to change the world is to teach kids to be good people”) and she explained why she became a journalist (“to make a difference and help people”). He didn’t ask about Lexa’s father, but she told him anyway. She had just graduated from high school and he was charming and perfect but didn’t stick around long after the baby was born, and now resided in Coast City where he was the head of some tech company. Lexa saw him very rarely. 

Kara glanced at the time.

“I’m sorry, Lexa’s class is ending in a few minutes so I have to go.”

He gave her an over exaggerated frown. 

“Maybe we can do this again next week?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

~~~

Thursdays quickly became Kara’s favorite day of the week. After work, she took Lexa to dance class and met Mon-El for coffee. Sometimes they discussed the program and her article series on it, sometimes they didn’t.

She was attracted to him.

She found herself repeating _Lexa’s teacher, Lexa’s teacher, Lexa’s teacher_ over and over again, not that it helped with her attraction. But she thought he may have felt it too. Sometimes she caught him giving her an affectionate smile when she laughed. He had a way of nervously rubbing his hand against the back of his neck when he was nervous, and he frequently did it when she said something flirtatious to him.   

After several weeks of a will-they-won’t-they flirtation that put even the best cop shows to shame, he kisses her.

He’s saying goodbye to her one night, and kisses her goodnight like it’s the easiest thing in the world. She moves into the kiss at first, before the thought popped into her head: _Lexa’s teacher._ There were still three weeks left of the school year, and dating her kid’s teacher (and also the subject of her article series) was a huge conflict of interest.

She pulled away, but still remained close to him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“You’re Lexa’s teacher.”

He looked at the ground.

“You’re right. I really don’t want you to be right, but you are.” 

Her heart aches, and suddenly she has an idea.

“Lexa’s dance recital is two weeks after school is out. Why don’t you come to it with me?”

He nods, and gives her a quick hug as Lexa came running out of the studio to greet them.

Kara watched him as he walked away, wishing she could speed up time. 

 _Five more weeks._ She could do this.  

~~~~~~~~

He comes over to her house an hour before they have to leave for the recital. Lexa was already there, getting ready with the kids from her group. 

Kara’s heart pounded as she walked to the door. It was just Mon-El, the same guy she’d been getting coffee with for months and just because there was no issue with them being together anymore didn’t mean anything would change and--

He kisses her.

He doesn’t even say hello. One second he’s standing in her doorway, holding some sort of basket and the next he’s inside the apartment with his mouth against hers.

He pulls away, leaning his forehead against hers and laughing softly.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” 

“I made your favorite,” he said, and Kara now saw that the basket he was holding was filled with chocolate chip muffins. She took them from him with a smile and thanked him.

“You know, we still have some time before we have to leave.” she said.  
  
And with that, he kissed her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s come hang out with me at hermesmultivitamins on Tumblr!! 
> 
> p.p.s I may or may not be writing another detective matthews and danvers chapter of this
> 
> p.p.p.s I'm really sorry about the tense being all over the place in this one, I will fix it asap


	16. it's okay. i couldn't sleep anyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this one is a hardcore The 100 AU but you should be able to read it without watching the show. Thanks for all your support!

_ 87) It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.  _

_ Or: Kara and Mon-El get some sleep, for once.  _

_ Chapter Sixteen _

 

Post-apocalyptic Earth was not the easiest place to get a good night’s sleep.  

Kara’s tent was towards the edge of camp. She had chosen this spot specifically, in hopes that the long walk from the center of Camp J’onnz would encourage the delinquents to at least try to solve their own problems before coming to her to fix them.

Tonight, she was apparently not so lucky. She heard the footsteps approaching, and she wrapped her hand around the knife just in case. 

The knife turned out to be an unnecessary precaution. 

“Kara?” Mon-El asked, standing in the doorway.

“Come in,” she said, sitting up on her bed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were sleeping.”

“It’s the middle of the night, what did you think I would be doing?”

“Staring at the ceiling, wondering how we’re going to get one hundred delinquents from space through their first Earth winter.”

She scoffed, but didn’t deny it. 

Mon-El sat next to her on the bed, and Kara tried to ignore the way the sunlight had tanned his skin, brought out even more by the white color of his short sleeved shirt.

“Where’s your jacket?” she asked. 

“Checking me out, Danvers?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Someone needed it more than I did,” he said. 

Kara’s expression softened, and she moved closer to him. He looked pointedly at the reduced space between them, but did not shift away from her. The candlelight flickered across his features, and Kara took this rare moment where they weren’t arguing or fighting for their lives to look at him. 

Kara hadn’t known Mon-El on the Ark. One would think that considering the human race had been decimated by nuclear weapons, leaving only those who were in space to ensure the survival of mankind, people would forget about things like class differences. But of course, humans are nothing if not consistent in repeating their history, and the members of the Ark had organized themselves into a typical class structure. Mon-El was privileged--his parents on the council, his family had access to the best supplies and most updated information. He was well known on the Ark as the a playboy and troublemaker, a reputation that eventually got him locked in the Skybox, the space version of juvie. 

He was as handsome as the rumors said he was. His muscles bulged, despite the lack of nutrition they’d had since being sent to the ground to see if it was survivable a century after Earth had been devastated by nuclear war. His hands were scarred and calloused. The ground had clearly affected him physically--but his eyes were the same as when she’d first met him that day he opened the door to the drop ship--light and full of mischief. 

“So did you need something?” she said, breaking the moment. 

“I just didn’t want to be alone,” he said, his honesty surprising her. “I can go if you want me to.”

“It’s okay, I couldn’t sleep anyway,” she responded, allowing her head to drop to his shoulder. 

“You should try to rest,” he said.

“How are we going to get through this winter?” she asked.

“We’ll survive. We always do. But for right now, we need to sleep.”

He laid down, pulling her back onto the bed with him. 

“You have to go before someone sees you in the morning. If Winn catches you sleeping in here, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

He laughed in response.

“For the love of God, Danvers, shut up and go to sleep. I’ll leave early in the morning.”

At first she didn’t respond, but (against her better judgement) she said, “I wish you didn’t have to leave at all.”

“Maybe one day things will be different,” he said pulling her closer. “Who knows, maybe one day the delinquents will be okay by themselves and we can say fuck it and get out of here. You and me. Screw everybody else. We’ll just...go.”

She knows he expects her to scoff or laugh or hit him, but instead she says, “Maybe someday.”

And with the thought of the two of them, roaming free across the ground, no responsibilities or obligations, she fell asleep.  
  
Maybe someday. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this is the last one that I have written. While I am working on the next chapter (which is a detective undercover au inspired by tony and ziva from ncis and is super fun), currently this story is not my priority. Most likely, I won't post anything until after the finale/end of the semester. I want to stress that I will still update and plan on finishing this, but after an extremely negative experience with the Supergirl fandom, combined with an really fun multi chapter fic I've started writing for a different fandom, personal reasons, and end of semester stress, updates most likely will not be as frequent. You all have been absolutely wonderful and your support means the world to me!!! I couldn't do this without y'all
> 
> p.s. if you have any questions/comments/whatever feel free to shoot me a message at hermesmultivitamins on Tumblr :)
> 
> p.p.s I went through and fixed all the weird spacing from previous chapters so everything is nice and pretty!!!


	17. watch your step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After many requests for more police AU chapters, I present you with Chapter 17: a prequel of sorts to Chapter 11.
> 
> Sorry for the long wait!! I'm terribly fond of this chapter, so hopefully the wait was worth it. 
> 
> Although I can't say for sure, many chapters going forward will most likely be AU. Updates may be sporadic, as I'm working on a massive AU for another fandom. As always, thank you all so much for the support and I wish I had time to respond to all of your comments!! 
> 
> WARNING: very, very brief mentions of sexual assault. nothing graphic at all but it is mentioned

_ 87) “Watch your step.”  _

_ Or: Detectives Matthews and Danvers go undercover. _

_ Chapter Seventeen _

 

Detective Kara Danvers of the National City Police Department genuinely liked most things. She liked food, the bar called The Fortress, her friends, her sister, puppies, Jeopardy…

It was safe to say, though, that Kara Danvers did  _ not  _ like Detective Mike “Mon-El” Matthews, also of the NCPD.

Her old partner had transferred from the Major Crimes Unit to Narcotics, and Mon-El had been hired to fill the spot. 

Mon-El was essentially a smorgasbord of all the things Kara did not like. He was arrogant, entitled, came in hungover more often than not, always left their post-case celebratory drink session at The Fortress with a different girl...she could go on forever.

That wasn’t to say he wasn’t a good detective. He was excellent--his knack for reading people made him an exceptional interrogator--so when Captain Sawyer asked her opinion of her new partner, Kara had begrudgingly admitted that despite the fact he needed a serious upgrade in the personality department, he was overall a useful addition to the team. 

The case they’d been working on was particularly stressful. A half dozen female college students had been sexually assaulted on the National City University campus, and they had frustratingly few leads. DNA had been left at the scene, but no matches were found in the system. The attacker wore a ski mask--the only detail the girls could give was he was white and had green eyes. 

The detectives of the Major Case squad sat at their desks around the bullpen, levels of annoyance and tension growing by the second. They had examined and reexamined all of the evidence, but still turned up nothing. Silence had settled over them as they each looked at the details of the case pinned up on a corkboard. The quiet seemed to stretch on for hours, and then:

“Olsen! There is no need to type that hard; wherever the perp is, he can probably hear you. Breaking your keyboard is not going to solve this case,” Lena snapped, finally breaking the silence. “Don’t laugh Matthews, if you don’t quit it with the pen clicking I will take it and shove it so far up--”

Kara’s desk phone rang, interrupting Lena’s tirade.

“This is Danvers,” she said quietly, not wanting to invoke Lena’s rage.

“How’s my favorite crime fighter?” the voice on the phone said.

“Hey Winn! Please tell me you have good news.”

“That I do. Want to put me on speaker so the whole team can hear?”

“Hey guys, Winn has something.” The bickering in the bullpen stopped as the technical analyst extraordinaire explained his findings.

“So obviously, there are a lot of similarities between these girls--same college, small age range, similar looks-blonde hair, blue eyes, glasses-but other than that, we thought there was no overlap. Until now. According to credit card statements, all six victims stopped at the Koala Bear Cafe across the street from the campus on the days of and preceding their assaults, all around the same time of day each time.”

“What time, Winn?” James asked.

“4:00pm.”

Kara glanced at the current time: 2:00pm.

“Danvers, Matthews. I want you to go check out this cafe,” James said. “Wait--before you go I want you to change into regular clothes. Look like college students. We can’t rule out that someone who works there is involved and with the serious lack of evidence we have we don’t want to blow our only lead.”

“So we’re going undercover?” Kara asked, the horror on her face the exact opposite of Mon-El’s extreme enthusiasm. It wasn’t that she didn’t like undercover assignments, it was that she absolutely did not want to go on one with her partner. Not that this was some extended mission, but she was sure Mon-El would  _ love  _ dressing up as a frat boy.

“You’re going undercover. You have an hour to get ready. You don’t need much of a cover story--you are students at NCU. I want you to observe and chat with people at the cafe. Keep it casual.”

~~~

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about her partner was that he was hopelessly attractive. It annoyed her endlessly-the way he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirts and always wore the tightest tee shirts to the gym and how his eyes shone when he laughed and overall it just made Kara wish he’d gone into modeling into police work so she could admire him from afar without actually having to deal with him personally.

Winn, of all people, had elected himself in charge of Kara’s undercover outfit. Lena was helping Mon-El. 

“I don’t understand why Lena is helping him and you are helping me,” she said to her friend as they rifled through the female undercover closet. 

“Lena should help you because she’s a girl and so are you? That’s awfully outdated thinking, Detective Danvers.”

“No, Lena should help me because you picked this.” She held up a skimpy white lace dress that would have been good for going undercover at a bachelorette party. 

“Point taken,” he said. “Here try this. It screams ‘college girl in October.’”

She ducked into the changing room, and when she looked into the mirror, she had to admit Winn was spot on. She was wearing black leggings, a NCU sweatshirt, and brown boots. She pulled her hair into a messy bun, and stepped out of the changing room. Lena, who was waiting outside with Winn, gave the tech a look of approval. 

“Good job,” she said to Winn. “But I did better. C’mon, Matthews, get out here.”

“You guys know this isn’t a game, right?” Mon-El said. “It’s not even a serious undercover assignment. We just have to sit in a cafe and not look like cops.”

Lena shushed him as he exited the dressing room, and Kara could not stop her eyebrows from shooting up. He looked  _ good _ . Kara shot Lena a murderous look; her best friend was aware of Kara’s inconvenient attraction to her partner, and she was sure that was why Mon-El was dressed in a tight white t-shirt, dark jeans, and a leather jacket that made him look like a supermodel. Lena handed Mon-El a pair of aviator sunglasses to complete the look, meeting Kara’s glare with a falsely sweet grin. 

“Congratulations Matthews, you look exactly Zac Efron in  _ 17 Again, _ ” Kara said.

“I’ll take that has a compliment,” Mon-El replied.

Kara scoffed and turned to her best friend. “Lena, he’s going to attract attention if he looks like that.” Despite the hushed tone she used, Mon-El looked over at Kara and smirked. 

She ignored him. Lena sighed, and said, “You’re right.” She exited for a moment before returning with a hoodie, tossing it to him. He switched out his jacket for it.

“Can I at least keep the sunglasses?” he asked, pouting. 

“Negative, ghostrider.” Lena took them back and handed him a pair of fake eyeglass frames.

“You do realize this means I’m wearing fake glasses over contacts, right?”

Lena shushed him again. 

“What the hell is taking so long?” James said as he entered the room.

“Sorry boss,” Mon-El said. “We’re ready.”

~~~

The Koala Bear Cafe was a busy place, and after ordering her latte and settling down to pretend to study, Kara found there was an awful lot to observe. She had was the one who was watching--customers, staff, interactions between patrons, cataloguing anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Due to her uncanny resemblance to the victims, she paid special attention to anyone who seemed to notice her. 

Mon-El was assigned to talking to staff and other customers. This was his speciality, and he excelled at it. He chatted effortlessly with the cashier and the barista, and the numerous girls who approached him. He sat on the opposite side of the cafe as Kara, but she could hear all of his conversations through the mics they were both wearing. 

After they’d been there for an hour, Mon-El had chatted up three different girls. Kara had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes when a fourth-with blonde hair and glasses, much to her annoyance-sat down across from him.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit here,” the girl said, leaning forward on the table. 

“Not at all,” Mon-El responded, giving the girl his best smile.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” she said.

“My friend Elizabeth Williams just told me about it, I’ve been looking for a new place to study. The library is too stuffy, you know?”

“You know Elizabeth? Did you hear what happened to her?” Before waiting for a response, the girl continued. “She got attacked, she’s been in the hospital for like  _ ever _ .”

“I heard. It’s terrible isn’t it?”

The girl nodded, her eyes wide. “I was working the night she got attacked. It gets pretty noisy in here so I didn’t hear anything, but it happened in the alley behind all of the stores on this street, right near our dumpster.”

“I heard she’s going to be okay. But it’s still scary,” he responded.

“Elizabeth is one of my favorite regulars. I know Macy and Jane, too. I hope the police catch this guy soon.”

Mon-El nodded solemnly. 

He chatted with her for a few more minutes, learning her name was Raelynn and she worked part time at the cafe while taking classes at NCU. While her partner talked to her, Kara noticed a college aged guy continually glancing at her from his place in line. She smiled at him, and he just stared at him in response. There was something off about this guy, but before she could approach him she heard Mon-El’s voice in her earpiece: “Danvers, I think we need to check out this alley out back. According to Rae, at least three of the victims used it to walk home. Leave now, I’ll meet you out there in a few minutes.”

~~~

“So I see you made some new friends,” Kara said as they walked around the back of the cafe.

“Jealous?” he asked, playfully nudging her arm.

“Ha, you wish,” she responded, rubbing her arm where he’d touched it. Banter always come easy between them, but at the moment it felt more playful than antagonistic-a departure from their normal conversation.

“So the girls came this way to walk home,” he said, changing the subject back to the case. “But only Elizabeth, the latest victim, was attacked back here. The rest were attacked blocks from here.”

“He grabbed her here-” Kara walked toward a dumpster belonging to a diner. “But no one from the restaurant saw or heard anything. He dragged here over here--” she tripped on a curb, and her partner’s hands shot out to steady her.

“Watch your step, Danvers,” he said, not removing his hand from her waist. 

She glanced down at his hand, armed with a rude quip before heavy footsteps distracted her. A few doors down, she got a glimpse of the person walking toward them. 

“Mon, that’s the guy from the coffee shop,” she whispered, pulling him behind the dumpster and out of view. “The one who kept looking at me. There’s something off about him.”

The footsteps grew closer.

“We’re going to blow our cover,” she said.

“I have an idea,” he said, suddenly very close to her. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Matthews, what are you-”

With the footsteps rapidly approaching, Mon-El moved closer to her and put his lips on hers. She responded nearly instantly, understanding why he’d asked her not to kill him. She deepened the kiss--because she was a professional, goddamnit, and she could  _ not  _ blow her cover. Her instincts were telling her that this guy was involved. So, she wrapped her arms around her partner’s neck, tangling her fingers in his hair and pushing him gently against the wall. She moaned into his mouth as he pulled her closer and she tried to remind herself that this was for work, this was for the case, but it was getting hard to think and--”

“Oh! Sorry!” the young man said upon seeing them. “I didn’t realize…”

Kara quickly pulled away and turned to face him, but Mon-El kept a hand on her back in a way that felt strangely protective. Kara took the awkward silence as a chance to observe the man standing in front of them. He was average height, with short dark hair, green eyes, and glasses. He was dressed in jeans and a dress shirt, and carried a laptop bag. His eyes locked on Kara’s, and suddenly a horrible look passed over his face. 

“Detective Kara Danvers,” he said slowly, his hand reaching into his bag. Mon-El stepped in front of Kara as the man pulled a gun out of his bag, pointing it directly at her partner. 

“Take out your mics,” he said. Neither of them moved. He shifted so the gun was pointed at Kara. “Take them out, or I shoot her.”

“No!” Mon-El exclaimed. “We’ll do it. Please don’t hurt her.”

They took out their earpieces and smashed them as ordered.

“Now start walking,” the man said. “You’re coming with me.”

  
_ To be continued... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps: im so so sorry for ending it like this but I had to. I'm working on part two now!!! I really hope this turned out okay, I've never written action before!
> 
> pps: come hang out with me at hermesmultivitamins on tumblr
> 
> ppps: there are probably some minor inconsistencies from the original detective au to this one and I apologize for that. Lucy and Eve are briefly mentioned as part of major case in the first chapter, let's pretend in this one they are working on another case


	18. Author's Note

to my lovely readers,

before I wrote the first chapter of this, I had not written a full story in years. Reading and writing-even fic-had not been apart of my life in a long time. 

And so it is no joke when I say that this story-and you all-saved me. Reading and writing have always been my passions in life but after suffering through a fairly severe trauma I drifted away from it. I can't remember what inspired this fic, but writing it reignited a love I'd been missing for years and has helped me in my recovery process. 

The response to this has been incredible. Every comment, bookmark, and kudos has meant the absolute world to me. Your support and kind words were always the best part of my day. 

I know that it's not easy to be a fan of Kara and Mon-El, especially after that finale. Unfortunately, the hatred in the Supergirl fandom has diminished my love for the show. Maybe after some time it will return, but for now it is with a heavy heart that I say the next chapter will be the last chapter. I’m still working on it, and hopefully it will be up soon but I have no estimate of when. If the inspiration strikes, I may post more Kara and Mon-El one shots, but this is the end of this story. 

The decision is threefold:  
1\. I've been involved in fandom for 11 years and one of my biggest rules is I do NOT tolerate hate. Fandom is supposed to be a safe space, and hatred and fighting ruins that, and it's safe to say the Supergirl fandom is terrible about this.  
2\. I am-as you can probably tell from my writing-a slow burn fan. I am obsessed with the enemies to friends to lovers trope, and that's what I thought Kara and Mon-El were going to be. Obviously I was wrong, and with only established relationships on the show (as well as some other reasons) I quickly lost interest. It's very hard to write for a show you don't even enjoy watching.  
3\. Due to my waning interest in the show, I don't feel like I can write accurately or well for it anymore, and I would rather leave you with stories I loved writing. 

I love you all so much and I want to thank you for helping me fall back in love with writing-especially juliakaze for her amazing fan art. I am working on other projects for other fandoms, as well as an original novel and that is all thanks to you all. This story will forever hold a place in my heart. 

If you have any questions or want to talk to me about anything, please hit me up on tumblr at hermesmultivitamins. Thank you again for everything. 

love always,  
Sierra


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